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[ Printed for the American Anti-Slavery Sorieti/. ] 



SPEECH OF WENDELL PHILLIPS, 

AT THE MELODEON, THXTRSDAY EVENING, JAN. 27, 18.53. 

/\, [PBONOGK-VPHICALLT REPORTED DV J. M. W. TERRINTON.] 

i 

Wendell Phillips came forward, aud was received with loud cheering. 
He presented, from the Business Committee, the t'oUo^ving resohition : — 

Resolved, That the object of this Society is now, as it has always been, to 
convince our countrjTnen, by arguments addressed to their hearts and con- 
sciences, that Slavcholding is a heinous crime, and that the duty, safety, and 
interest of all concerned, demand its immediate abolition, without expa- 
triation. 

I wLsh, Mr. Chairman, to notice some objections that have been made to 
our course, ever since Mr. Garrisox began his career, and which have been 
lately urged again, with considerable force and emphasis, in the columns of 
the London Leader, the able organ of a very respectable and influential class 
in England. I hope, Sir, you will not think it waste of time to bring such a 
subject before you. I know these objections have been made a thousand 
times ; that they have been often answered ; though we have generally sub- 
mitted to them in silence, willing to let results speak for us. But there 
are times when justice to the Slave will not allow us to be silent. There 
are many in this country, many in England, who have had their attention 
turned, recently, to the Anti- Slavery cause. They are asking, " which is 
the best and most efficient method of helping it ? " Engaged ourselves in 
an effort for the Slave, which time has tested and success hitherto approved, 
we are, very properly, desirous that they shovdd join us in our labors, and 
pour into tliis channel the full tide of their new zeal and great resources. 
Thoroughly convinced ourselves that our course is vise, we can honestly 
urge others to adopt it. Long experience gives us a right to advise. The 
fact that our course, more than all other efforts, has caused that agitation 
which has awakened these new converts, gives us a right to counsel them. 
1 






They are our siJuitual children : for their salces, wc -s\ould free the cause wc 
love and trust from every seeming defect and plausible objection. For the 
Slave's sake, Ave reiterate our explanations, that he may lose no tittle of 
help by the mistakes or misconceptions of his friends. 

All that I have to say on these pomts will be to you, Mr. Chairman, very 
trite and familiar ; but the facts may be new to some, and I prefer to state 
them here, in Boston, where we have lived and worked, because if our state- 
ments are incorrect, if we claim too much, our assertions can be easily an- 
swered and disproved. 

The charges to which I refer are these : That iii dealmg with Slave- 
holders and their apologists, Ave indulge in fierce denunciations, instead of 
appealing to their reason and common sense by plain statements and fair 
argument ; — that we might have won the sjonpathies and support of the 
nation, if wc would have submitted to argue this question with a manly 
patience ; but instead of tliis, we have outraged the feelings of the commu- 
nity by attacks, unjust and unnecessarily severe, on its most valued institu- 
tions, and gratified our spleen by mdiscriminate abuse of leading men, who 
were often honest in their intentions, however mistaken in their A-iews ; — 
that we have utterly neglected the ample means that lay around us to con- 
vert the nation, submitted to no discipline, formed no plan, been guided by 
no foresight, but hurried on in childish, reckless, blind, and hot-headed 
zeal — bigots in the narrowness of our views, and fanatics in our blind fury 
of mvective, and malignant judgment of other men's motives. 

There are some who come upon our platform, and give us the aid of 
names and reputations less burdened than ours with pojmlar odium, who 
are perpetually urging us to exercise charity m our judgments of those about 
us, and to consent to argue these questions. These men are ever paradmg 
their wish to draw a line between themselves and us, because they must be 
permitted to wait — to trust more to reason than feeling — to indulge a gen- 
erous charity — to rely on the stire influence of simple truth, uttered in love, 
&c., &c. I reject >vith scorn all these implications that our judgments are 
tmcharitable, — that we are lacking in patience, — that we have any other 
dependence than on the simple truth, spoken with Cluistian fi-ankness yet 
with Christian \o\e. These lectures, to which you, Sir, and all of us, liaA-e 
so often listened, would be impertinent, if they were not rather ridiculous 
for the gross ignorance they betray of the community, of the cause, and of 
the whole course of its friends. 

The article in the Leader to Avhich I refer is signed *' Ion," and may be 
found in TJie Liberator of December 17, 1852. The writer is cordial and 
generous in his recognition of Mr. Gaurisox's claim to be the representative 
of the Anti- Slavery movement, and docs cntu'e justice to his motives and 
character. The criticisms of lox were reprinted in the Christian Register, of 
this city, the organ of the Unitarian denomination. The editors of that 
paper, Avith then- usual Christian courtesy, love of truth, and faii'-dealing, 
omitted all Ion's expressions of regard for Mr. Garkison and appreciation of 
his motives, and rei^rmted only tiiosc parts of the article Avhich undervalue 
his sagacity and influence, and endorse the common objections to his method 



SPEKCH. d 

:uid views. You will see in a moment, Mr. President, that it is with such 
men and presses, Ion thinks Mr. Gakuison has not been sufficiently wise 
and patient, in trying to win their help for the An ti- Slavery cause. Per- 
haps, were he on the spot, it woidd tiic even his patience and puzzle 
even his sagacity to make any otlicr use of them than that of the drunken 
Helot — a warnmi; to others how disgusting mean vice is. Perhaps, were 
he here, he would see that the best and only use to be made of them is to 
let them unfold their own characters, and then show the world Iioav rotten 
our Polities and Religion are, that they naturally bear sucli fruit. loK 
quotes Mr. Gaurison's original declaration, iu The Liberator : — 

I am aware that many object to the severity of my language ; but is there 
not cause for severity ? I ^cill be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising 
as justice. I am in earnest — I Avill not equivocate — I will not excuse — I 
will not retreat a single inch — and I avill be iieaiid. 

It is pretended that I am retarding the cause of emancipation by the coarse- 
ness of my invective, and the precipitancy of my measures. The charge is 
not true. On this question, my iniiuencc, humble as it is, Ls felt at this mo- 
ment to a considerable extent, and shall be felt in coming years — not per- 
niciously, but beneficially — not as a curse, but as a blessing ; and posterity 
Avill bear testimony that I was right. I desire to thanlv (iod that he enables 
me to disregard " the fear of man which bringeth a snare," and to speak his 
truth in its simplicity and power. 

He then goes on to say : — 

ThLs is a defence wWch has been generally accepted on this side of the 
Atlantic, and many are the Abolitionists among us whom it has encouraged 
in honestj' and impotence ; and whom it lias converted into conscientious 
hindrances. * * * 

"We would have Mr. Garrison to say, " I will be as harsh as progress, as 
uncompromising as success." If a man speaks for his own gratification, he 
may be as " harsh " as he pleases ; but if he speaks for the down-trodden 
and oppressed, he must be content to put a curb upon the tongue of holiest 
passion, and speak only as hai'shly as is compatible with the ameUoration 
of the evil he proposes to redress. Let the question be again repeated : Do 
you seek for the Slave vengeance or rech-ess .'' If you seek retaliation, go on 
denouncing. But distant Europe honors AVilliam I>loyd Garrison, be- 
cause it credits him Avith seeking for the Slave simply redress. "We say, 
therefore, that " imcompromising " policy is not to be measured by absolute 
justice, but by practical amelioration of the Slave's condition. Amelioration 
as fast as you can get it — absolute justice as soon as you can reach it. 

He quotes the sentiment of Confucius, that he would choose for a leader 
" a man who wotdd maintain a steady vigilance in the. direction of affairs ; 
who was capable of forming plans, and of executing them," and says : — 

The philosopher was right in placing wisdom and executive capacity above 
courage ; for down to this day, our popular movements are led by heroes 
who /('(/r nothing, and who irin nothing. * * ♦ 

There is no question r;uscd in these articles as to the work to be done, but 
only as to the mode of reallij doing it. The platform resounds with an- 
nouncements of principle, wliich is but asserting a right, while nothing but 
contempt is showered on policy which is the realization of right. The air is 



filled Avith all high cries and spirited denunciations ; indignation is at a pre- 
mium ; and this is called advocacy. * * * But to calculate, to make 
sure of your aim, is to be decried as one "who is too cold to feel, too genteel 
to strike. 

Further on, he observes : — 

If an artillery officer throws shell after shell which never reach the enemy, 
he is replaced by some one vdth a better eye and a surer aim. But in the 
artillery battle of ophiion, io 7nean to hit is quite siifficient ; and if you have 
a certain grand indrtference as to whether you hit or not, you may count on 
public ai:)plause. * * * 

A man need be no less militant, as the soldier of facts, than as the agent 
of swords. But the arena of argument needs discipline no less than that of 
arms. It is this which the Anti- Slavery party seem to me not only to over- 
look, but to despise. They do not put their valor to drill. Neither on the 
field nor the platform has courage any inherent capacity of taking care of 
itself. 

The writer then proceeds to make a quotation fi-om Mr. Emersox, the 
latter part of which I will read : — 

Let us withhold every reproachful, and, if we can, every mdignant remark. 
In this cause, we must renounce our temper and the risings of pride. If 
there be any man who thinks the ruin of a race of men a small matter com- 
pared witli the last decorations and completions of his own comfort — who 
would not so much as part with his ice-cream to save them from rapine and 
manacles — I think I must not hesitate to satisfy that man, that also his cream 
and A'anilla are safer and cheaper by placing the negro nation on a fair- foot- 
ing than by robbing them. If the Virginian piques himself on the pictur- 
esque luxury of his vassalage, on the heavy Ethiopian manners of Ins house 
sen^ants, their silent obedience, theu" hue of bronze, their turbaned heads, 
and would not exchange them for the more intelligent but precarious hired 
services of whites, I shall not refuse to show him that when then- free 
papers are made out, it will still be theii- interest to remain on his estates ; 
and that the oldest planters of Jamaica are convinced that it is cheaper to 
pay wages than to own Slaves. 

The critic takes exception to Mr. Garrison's approval of the denimciatory 
language in which Daniel O'Connell rebuked the giant sin of America, 
and concludes his article with this sentence : — 

When William Lloyd Garrison praises the great Celtic Monarch of in- 
vective for this dire outpouring, he acts the part of the boy who fancies 
that the terror is in the war-whoop of the savage, unmindful of the quieter 
muskets of the civilized infantry, whose unostentatious execution blows 
whoop and tomahawk to the devil. 

Before passing to a consideration of these remarks of Ion, let me say a 
word in relation to Mr. Emerson. I do not consider him as endorsing any 
of these criticisms on the Abolitionists. His services to the most radical 
Anti-Slavery movement have been generous and marked. He has never 
slirunk from any odium which lending his name and voice to it would incur. 
Making fair allowance for his peculiar taste, liabits, and genius, he has given 
a generous amount of aid to the Anti- Slavery movement, and never let its 
friends want his cordial " God-speed." 



Ion'8 charges are tl'io old ones, that wo Abolitionists are hurting our own 
cause — that, instead of waiting for the community to come up to our views, 
and cndeuvoring to remove prejudice and enlighten ignorance, by patient 
explanation and fair argument, we fall at once, like children, to abusing 
everything and everybody — that we imagine zeal will supply the place of 
common souse — that we have never shown any sagacity in adapting our 
means to our ends, have never studied the national character, or attunipted to 
make use of the materials which lay all about us, to inliuence public opinion, 
but by blind, childish, obstinate fury and indiscriminate denunciation, have 
become «» honestly impotent and conscientious hindrances." 

These, Sir, are the charges which have uniformly been brought against 
all reformers in all ages. Ion thinks the same faults are chargeable on 
the leaders of all the "popidar movements" in England, which, he says, 
" are led by heroes who/mr nothing, and who tcin notliing." If the leaders 
of popular movements in Great Britain for the last fifty years have been 
hsers, I should be curious to know what party, in Ion's opinion, have won ? 
My Lord Dekry and his friends seem to think Democracy has made and is 
making dangerous headway. If the men who, by popular agitation, outside 
of Parliament, wrung from a powerful oligarchy Parliamentary Iloform, and 
the Abolition of the Test Acts, of high Post Rates, of Catholic Disability, of 
Negro Slavery and the Corn Laws, did " not win anything," it would be 
hard to say what winning is. K the men who, without the ballot, made 
Peel their tool and conquered the Duke of Wellington, are considered un- 
successful, pray what kind of a thing would success be ? Those who now, 
at the head of that same middle class, demand the separation of Chiurch and 
State, and the Extension of the Ballot, may well guess, from the fluttering 
of Whig and Tory dovecotes, that soon they will " win" that same " noth- 
ing." Heaven grant they may enjoy the same ill success with their prede- 
cessors ! On our side of the ocean, too, we ought deeply to sympathize with 
the leaders of the Temperance movement in their entire w-ant of success ! 
If Ion's mistakes about the Anti-Slavery cause lay as much on the surface 
as those I have just noticed, it would be hardly worth while to reply to liim ; 
for as to these, he certainly exhibits only " the extent and variety of liis 
mis-inlbrmation." 

His remarks upon the Anti-Slavery movement are, however, equally in- 
accurate. I claim, before you who know the true state of the case, I claim 
for the Anti-Slavery movement with which this Society is idontitied, that, 
looking back over its whole course, and considering the men connected with 
it in the mass, it has been marked by sound judgment, unerring foresight, 
the most sagacious adaptation of means to ends, the strictest self-discipline, 
the most thorough research, and an amount of patient and manly argument 
addressed to the conscience and intellect of the nation, such as no other 
cause of the kind, in England or this country, has ever offered. I claim, 
also, that its course has boon marked by a cheerful surrender of all individual 
claims to merit or leadership — the most cordial welcoming of tlic slightest 
effort, of every honest attempt to lighten or to break the chain of the Slave. 
I need not waste tune by repeating the sui^crfluous confession that we are 
2" 



6 SPEECH. 

men, and therefore do not claim to bo perfect. jSTeither would I bo under- 
stood as dcnjing that we use denunciation, and ridicule, and every other 
weapon that the human miad knov.'s. We must plead guilty, if there be 
guilt in not knowing how to separate the sin from the simier. "With all the 
fondness for abstractions attributed to us, we are not yet capable of that. 

/ We are fightmg a momentoxis battle at desperate odds — one against a thou- 
sand. Every weapon that ability or ignorance, wit, wealth, prejudice or 
fashion can command, is pointed against us. The guns are shotted to their 
lips. The arrows are poisoned. Fighting against such an array, we cannot 
afford to confine ourselves to, any one weapon. The cause is not ours, so 

^ that we might, rightfully, postpone or put in peril the victory by moderating 
our demands, stiiimg our convictions, or filing down our rebukes, to gratify 
any sickly taste of our own, or to spare the delicate nerves of oru- neighbor. 
'Our clients are three million of Slaves, standing dull suppliants at the 
/ threshold of the Christian Avorld. They have no voice biit ours to utter 
their complaints, or to demand justice. The press, the pulpit, the Avcalth, 
the literature, the prejudices, the political arrangements, the present self- 
interest of the country, are all against us. God has given us no weapon but 
the truth, faithfully uttered, and addressed, with the old prophet's direct- 
ness, to the conscience of the individual shiner. The elements which control 
public opinion and mould the masses arc against us. We can but pick off 
here and there a man from the triumphant majority. We have facts for 
those who thuik — arguments for those Avho reason ; but he who cannot 
be reasoned out of his prejudices, miist be laughed out of them ; he who 
cannot be argued out of his selfishness, must be shamed out of it by the 
mirror of his hateful self held up relentlcsslj^ before his eyes. AVe live in a 
land where every man makes broad his phylactery, inscribing thereon, " All 
men are created equal " — " God hath made of one blood all nations of men." 
It seems to us that in such a land there must be, on this question of Slavery, 
sluggards to be awakened as well as doubters to be convinced. Many more, 
Ave verily believe, of the first, than of the last. There are far more dead 
hearts to be quickened, than confused intellects to be cleared up — more 
dumb dogs to be made to speak, than doubting consciences to be enlight- 
ened. (Loud cheers.) We have use, then, sometimes, for something beside 
argument. 

What is the denunciation with which wc are charged .'' It is endeavorhig, 
in our fidtcring human speech, to declare the enormity of the sin of mak- 
ing merchandise of men — of separating husband and wife — taking the 
infant from its mother, and selling the daughter to prostitution — of a pro- 
fessedly Christian nation denying, by statute, the Bible to every sixth man 
and woman of its population, and making it illegal for "two or three" to 
meet together, except a white man be present ! What is tliis harsh criticism 
of motives Avith Avhich we are charged ? It is simplj' holding the intelligent 
and deliberate actor responsible for the character and conscqiiences of his 
acts. Is there anytliing inherently wrong in su^h denunciation or suclv 
criticism ? This avc may claim — avc haA'C never judged a man but out of his 
OAvn mouth. We have seldom, if CA-cr, held him to account, except for acts 



SPEKCH. 7 

of -which he and liis own friends were proud. All that we ask the world 
and thoughtful men to note are the principles and deeds on which the Amer- 
ican pulpit and American public men plume themselves. Wc always allow 
our opponents to paint their own pictures. Our humble duty is to stand by 
and assure the spectators, that what they would take for a knave or a 
hj'pocrite is retilly, in American estimation, a Doctor of Divinity or Secre- 
tary of State.* 

The South is one great brothel, where half a million of women are flogged 
to prostitution, or, worse still, arc degraded to believe it honorable. The 
l)ublic squares of haK our great cities echo to the waU of families torn asun- 
der at the auction-block — no one of our fair rivers that has not closed over 
the negro seeking in dcatli a refuge from a life too wretched to bear — thou- 
sands of fugitives skulk along our liighwa3's, afraid to tell their names, and 
trembling at the sight of a human being — free men are kidnapped in our 
streets, to be phmged into that hell of Slavery, and now and then one, as if 
by miracle, after long years, returns to make men aghast with his tale. The 
Press says, "It is all right;" and the Pulpit cries, "j!Vm.en." We print 



* A paragi-aph from the New England Farmer, of this city, has gone the rounds of the Press, 
and is generally believed. It says : — 

" Wc learn, on reliable authority, that Mr. Webster confessed to a warm political friend, a 
short time before his death, that tlie great mistake of his Ufe was the famous serenth of March 
speech, in which, it Tivill be remembered, he defended the Fugitive Slave Law, and fully com- 
mitted liimself to the Compromise juc;LSurcs. IJefore taking hi.s stand on that occasion, he is 
said to have corresponded with I'rof. Stimrt and other eminent divines, to ascertain how far 
the religious sentiment of the North would sustain him in the position he was about to assume." 

Some say this " warm political firiend " was a clergyman I Consider a moment the language 
of this statement, the form it takes on every lip and in every press. " The great mistake of his 
life " 1 Seventy years old, brought up in New England churches, with all the culture of the 
world at his command, his soul melted by the repeated loss of those dearest to him, a great 
statesman, with a heart, accortling to his admirers, yet tender and fresh, one who bent in such 
agony over the death-bed of his first daughter — ho looks back on this Speech, which his friends 
say changed the feelings of ten millions of people, and made it possible to enact and execute the 
I'ugitivC Slave Law. lie sees that it Hooded the hearthstones of thousands of colored men with 
wretchedness and despair — crazed the mother, and broke the heart of the wife — putting the 
virtue of woman and the Ubcrty of man in the power of the vilest — and all, as he at least now 
saw, for nothing. Yet one, who, according to his worshippers, was " the grandest growth of 
our soil and our institutions," looked back on such an act, and said what ? With one foot in 
the grave, said what of it ? '•! did wrong ■■? " I committed a foul outrage on my brother 
man ■' ? "I sported too carelessly \vith the welfare of the poor " ? Was there no moral chord in 
that heart, " the grandest growth of our soil and our institutions " ? Xo 1 He said, " I made a 
mistake I " Not, " I was false in my stewardship of these great talents and this high position I "' 
No I But on the chess-board of the political g:ime, I made a bad move ! I threw away mj' 
chances I A gambler, I did not understand my cards I And to whom does he offer this ac- 
knowledgment ? To a clergyman 1 the representative of the moral sense of the community ! 
What a picture ! We laugh at the lack of heart in TAiXEnusD, when he says, '' It is worse 
than a crime, a blunder." Yet all our New Englander can call this momentous crime of his 
life is, a 7nistake ! 

Whether this statement be entirely true or not, we all know it is exactly the tone in which all 
about us talk of that Speech. If the statement be true, what an entire want of right feeling 
and moral sensibility it shows in Mr. Wekster! If it be unfounded, still thi> welcome it has 
received, and the ready belief it has gained, show the popular appreciation of him, and of such 
a crime. Such is the pnbUc with whom Abolitionists have to deal. 



8 SPEECH. 

tlie Bible in every tongue in whicL. man utters his prayers — and get the 
money to do so, by agreeing never to give the book, in the language our 
mothers taught us, to any negro, free or bond, South of Mason and Dbion's 
Une. The Press saj's, " It is all right ; " and the I'ulpit erics, " Amen." 
The Slave lifts up his imploring eyes, and sees in every face, but ours, the 
face of an enemy. Prove to me now that harsh rebuke, indignant denuncia- 
tion, scathing sarcasm, and pitiless ridicule, are wholly and always unjustifi- 
able ; else we dare not, in so desperate a case, throw away any weapon wliich 
ever broke up the crust of an ignorant prejudice, roused a slumbering con- 
science, shamed a proud sinner, or changed, in any way, the conduct of a 
human being. Our aim is to alter pubhc opinion. Did we live in a market, 
our talk should be of dollars and cents, and we would seek to prove only 
that Slavery was an unprofitable investment. Were the nation one great, 
pure Church, ^^•e Avould sit down and reason of " righteousness, temperance, 
and judgment to come." Had Slavery fortified itself in a College, we would 
load our cannons with cold facts, and wing our arrows with arguments. But 
we happen to live in the world — the world made up of thought and impulse, 
of self-conceit and self-interest, of weak men and wicked. To conquer, we 
must reach all. Our object is not to make every man a Christian or a phi- 
losopher, but to induce every one to aid in the abolition of Slavery. We 
expect to accomplish our object long before the nation is made over into 
saints, or elevated into philosophers. To change pubhc opinion, we use tlie 
very tools by which it was formed. That is, all such as an honest man may 
touch. 

All this I am not only ready to allow, but I should be ashamed to thmk 
of the Slave, or to look into the face of my fellow-man, if it were otherwise. 
It is the only thing that justifies us to our own consciences, and makes us 
able to say we have done, or at least tried to do, our duty. 

So far, however you distrust my philosophy, you Avill not doubt my state- 
ments. That we have denounced and rebuked with unsparing fidelity will 
not be denied. Have we not also addressed ourselves to that other duty, of 
argumg our question thoroughly — of using due discretion and fair sagacity 
in endeavoring to promote our cause .'' Yes, we have. Every statement Ave 
have made has been doubted. Every principle we have laid do^ni has been 
denied by overwhelming majorities agamst us. No one stop has ever been 
gained but by the most laborious research and the most exhausting argu- 
ment. And no question has ever, since Kevolutionary days, been so thor- 
oughly investigated or argued here, as that of Slaverj% Of that research 
and that argument, of the whole of it, the old-fashioned, fanatical, crazy, 
Garrisonian Anti-Slavery movement has been the author. From this band 
of men has proceeded every important argument or idea that has been 
broached on the Anti-Slavery question fi-om 1830 to the present time. 
(Cheers.) I am well aAvarc of the extent of the claim I make. I recognise, 
as fully as any one can, the ability of the new laborers — the eloquence and 
genius with Avhich they have recommended this cause to the nation, and 
flashed conA'iction home on the conscience of the community. I do not 
mean, either, to assert that they have in every instance borrowed from our 



SrElXH. *J 

treasury their facts anil nrgunicnti). Left to themselves, they •\voultl proba- 
bly have looked iij) the one, and ori|j;inated the other. As a matter of fact, 
however, they have generally made use of the materials collected to their 
hands. But there are some persons about us, sympathizers, to a great extent, 
•with Ion, who pretend that the Anti-Slavery movement has been hitherto 
mere fanaticism, its only weapon angi-y abuse. They are obliged to a.ssert 
this, in order to justify their past indifference or hostility. At present, when 
it suits their purpose to give it some attention, they endeavor to explain the 
change by alleging that now it has been tiiken up by meil of thouglitful 
minds, and its claims are urged by fair discussion and able argument. My . 
claim, then, is this : that neither the charity of the most timid of sects, the 
sagacity of our wisest converts, nor the culture of the ri^iest scholars, though 
all have been aided by our twenty years' experience, has yet struck out any 
new method of reaching the public mind, or originated any new argument 
or train of thought, or discovered any new fact bearing on the question. 
When once brought fully into the struggle, they have found it necessary to 
adopt the same means, to rely on the same arguments, to hold up the same 
men and the same measures to public reprobation, -with the same bold rebuke 
and unsparing invective that we have used. All their conciliatory bearing, 
their piiins-taking moderation, their constant and anxious endeavor to di-aw 
a broad line between their camp and ours, have been thrown away. Just so 
far as they have been effective laborers, they have found, as we have, their 
hands against every man, and every man's hand against them. The niost 
experienced of them are ready to acknowledge that our plan has been wise, 
our course efHcient, and that our unpopularity is no fault of o\u-s, but flows 
necessarily and unavoidably from our position. " I should suspect," says 
old Fuller, " that his preaching had no salt in it, if no galled horse did 
•wince." Our friends find, after all, that men do not so much hate us as the 
truth we utter and the light we bring. They find that the community are 
not the honest seekers after truth which they fancied, but selfish politicians 
and sectarian bigots, who shiver, like Alexander's butler, whenever the s\m 
shines on them. Experience has driven these new laborers back to our 
method. We have no quarrel with them — would not steal one wreath of 
their laurels. All we claim is, that if they are to be complimented as pru- 
dent, moderate. Christian, sagacious, statesmanlike refonners, we deserve the 
same praise ; for they have done nothing that we, in our measui'es, did not 
attempt before. (Cheers.) 

I claim this, that the cause, in its recent aspect, has put on nothing but 
timidity. It has taken to itself no new weapons of recent years ; it has be- 
come more compromismg — that is all ! It has become neither more per- 
suasive, more learned, more Christian, more charitable, nor more effective, 
than for the twenty years preceding. Mr. IIalk, the head of the Free Soil 
movement, after a career in the Senate that woiild do honor to any man — 
afrtcr a six years' course which entitles him to the respect and confidence of 
the Anti-Slavery public — can put his name, ■within the last month, to an 
appeal from the city of Washington, signed by a Houston and a Cass, for a 
monviment to be raised to Henky Clay ! K that be the test of charity and 



10 



courtesy, we cannot give it to the world. (Loud cheers.) Some of the 
leaders of the Free Soil party of Massachusetts, after exhausting the whole 
capacity of our language to paint the treachery of Daniel Webster to the 
cause of liberty, and the evil they thought he was able and seeking to do ; 
— after that, could feel it in their hearts to parade themselves in the funeral 
procession got up to do him honor ! In this we allow we cannot follow 
them. The deference which every gentleman owes to the proprieties of 
social life, that self-respect and regard to consistency which is every man's 
duty, these, if no deeper feelings, will ever prevent us from giving such 
proofs of this newly-invented Christian courtesy. (Great cheering.) We 
do not ;j?ay politics ; Anti-Slavery is no half-jest -with us ; it is a terrible 
earnest, vdth life or death, worse than life or death, on the issue. It is no 
law-suit, where it matters not to the good feeling of opposing counsel which 
way the verdict goes, and where advocates can shake hands after the deci- 
sion as pleasantly as before. When we look upon such a man as Henry 
Clay, his long life, his mighty influence cast always into the scale against 
the Slave ; of that irresistible fascination with which he moulded every one 
to his will ; when we remember that, his conscience acknowledging the jus- 
tice of oiu: cause, and his heart open on every other side to the gentlest im- 
pulses, he could sacrifice so remorselesslj' his convictions and the welfare of 
millions to his low ambition ; when we think how the Slave trembled at the 
sound of his voice, and that, from a multitude of breaking hearts, there 
went up nothing but gratitude to God when it pleased Hun to call that great 
sinner from this world, — we cannot find it in our hearts, we could not shape 
our lips to ask any man to do him honor. (Great sensation.) No amount 
of eloquence, no sheen of ofScial position, no loud grief of partisan friends, 
would ever lead us to ask monuments or walk in fine processions for pirates ; 
and the sectarian zeal or selfish ambition which gives up, deliberately and in 
full knowledge of the facts, three million of human beings to hopeless igno- 
rance, daily robbery, systematic prostitution, and murder, which the law is 
neither able nor undertakes to prevent or avenge, is more monstrous, in our 
eyes, than the love of gold which takes a score of lives Avith merciful quick- 
ness on the high seas. Haynau on the Danube is no more hateful to us 
than Haynau on the Potomac. Why give mobs to one, and monuments to 
the other ? 

If these things be necessary to courtesy, I cannot claim that we are cour- 
teous. We seek only to be honest men, and speak the same of the dead as 
of the living. If the grave that hides their bodies could swallow also the 
evil they have done and the example they leave, we might enjoy at least the 
luxury of forgetting them. But the evil that men do lives after them, and 
Example ac<iiures tenfold authority when it speaks from the grave. History, 
also, is to be written. How shall a feeble minority, without weight or influ- 
ence in the country, with no jury of miUions to appeal to, — denounced, 
vilified, and contemned, — how shall we make way against the overwhelm- 
ing weight of some colossal reputation, if we do not turn from the idolatrous 
Present, and appeal to the Human Race ; saying to your idols of to-day^ 
" Here we are defeated, but we will write oui- judgment with the iron pen 



SPEECH. 1 1 

of a century to come, and it sliall never be forgotten, if we can help it, that 
you Avcrc fiiLso in yom* generation to the chiims of tlie Slave I " (Loud 
cheers.) 

At present, our leading men, strong m the support of large majorities, and 
counting safely on the prejudices of the community, can afford to despise us. 
Tliey know they can overawe or cajole the present ; theu- only fear is the 
judgment of the future. Strange fear, perhaps, considering how short and 
local their fame ! But however little, it Ls their all. Our only hold upon 
them is the thought of that bar of posterity, before which we are all to 
stand. Thank God ! there is the elder brother of the Saxon race across the 
water — there is the army of honest men to come! Before that jury we 
summon you. We are weak here — out-talked, out- voted. You load oiu- ' 
names with infan\y, and shout us dowm. But our words bide their time. 
"VVe warn tlie living that we have terrible memories, and that their sins are 
never to be forgotten. We will gibbet the name of every apostate so black 
and liigh that his children's children shall blush to bear it. Yet we bear no 
malice — cherish no resentment. We thank God that the love of fame, 
" that last infirmity of noble mind," is shared by the ignoble. In our neces- 
sity, wc seize this weapon in the Slave's behalf, and teach caution to the 
living by metmg out relentless justice to the dead. How strange the change 
death produces in the way a man is talked about here ! While leading men 
live, they avoid as much as possible all mention of Slavery, from fear of 
being thought Abolitionists. The moment they are dead, their friends rake 
up every word they ever contrived to wliisper in a corner for liberty, and 
parade it before the world ; growing angry, all the while, with us, because 
we insist on explaining these chance expressions by the tenor of a long and 
base life. While drunk Avith the temptations of the present hour, men are 
willing to bow to any Moloch. When their friends bury them, they feel 
what bitter mockery, fifty years hence, any epitaph will be, if it cannot 
record of one living in this era, some service rendered to the Slave ! These, 
^Ir. Chairman, are the reasons why we take care that " the memory of the 
wicked shall rot." 

I have claimed that the Anti-Slavery cause has, from the first, been ably 
and dispassionately argued, every objection candidly examined, and every 
ditHculty or doubt anywhere honestly entertained, treated with respect. Let 
me glance at the literatiure of the cause, and try not so much, in a brief hour, 
to prove this assertion, as to point out the sources from which any one may 
satisfy himself of its truth. 

I will begin with certainly the ablest and perhaps the most honest states- 
man who has ever touched the Slave question. Any one who will examine 
Joitx QuiNCY Adams's speech on Texas, in 1838, will see that he was only 
seconding the full and able exposure of the Texas plot, prepared by Benja- 
min* LuNDY ; to one of whose pamphlets Dr. Cuaxxixg, in his Letter to 
Henuy Cl.vy, has confessed his obligation. Even,- one acquainted with 
those years will allow that the Xorth owes its earliest knowledge and first 
awakening on that subject to Mr. Lixdy, who made long journeys and de- 
voted veara to the investigation. His labors have tliis attestation, that thev 



12 



quickened the zeal and strengthened the hands of such men as Adams and 
Channing. 

Look next at the Right of Petition. Long before any member of Con- 
gress had opened his mouth in its defence, the Abolition presses and lectu- 
rers had examined and defended the limits of this right, with profound 
historical research and eminent constitutional ability. : So thorouglily had 
the work been done, that all classes of the people had made up their minds 
about it, long before any speaker of eminence had touched it in Congress. 
The politicians were little aware of this. "When Mr. Adajis threw himself 
so gallantly into the breach, it is said he wrote anxiously home to know 
whether he would be supported in Massachusetts ; little aware of the out- 
burst of popular gratitude that the Northern breeze was even then brmging 
him, deep and cordial enough to wipe away the old grudge Massachusetts 
had borne him so long. Mr. Adams himself was only in favor of receiving 
the petitions, and advised to refuse their prayer, which was the abolition of 
Slavery in the District. He doubted the power of Congress. His doubts 
were examined by ilr. William Goodell, in two letters of most able and 
acute logic, and of masterly ability. If Mr. Adams still retained his doubts, 
it is certain, at least, that he never expressed them afterward. AVhen Mr. 
Clay paraded the same objections, the whole question of the power of Con- 
gress over the District was treated by Theodore D. Weld, in the fullest 
manner, and with the widest research : indeed, leaving nothing to be added : 
an argument which Dr. Channing characterized as <' demonstration," and 
pronounced the Essay "the ablest pamphlet from the American press." 
No answer was ever attempted. The best proof of its ability is, that no one 
smce has presumed to doubt the power. Lawyers and statesmen have tacitly 
settled down into its full acknowledgment. 

The influence of the Colonization Society on the welfare of the colored 
race was the first question our movement encountered. To the close logic, 
eloquent appeals, and fully sustained charges of Mr. Garrison's Letters on 
that subject, no answer was ever made. Judge Jay followed with a work 
full and able, establishing everj' charge by the most patient investigation of 
facts. It is not too much to say of these two volumes, that they left the 
Colonization Society hopeless at the North. It dares never show its face be- 
fore the people, and only lingers in some few nooks of sectarian pride, so 
secluded from the influence of present ideas as to be almost fossil in their 
character. 

The practical working of the Slave system, the Slave laws, the treatment 
of Slaves, their food, the duration of their lives, their ignorance and moral 
condition, and the influence of Southern public opinion on their fate, have 
been spread out in a detail and with a fullness of evidence which no subject 
has ever received before in tliis country. Witness the works of Phelps, 
Bourne, Rankin, Grimke, the " Anti-Slavery Record," and, above all, that 
encyclopocdia of facts and storehouse of arguments, the "Tltousand Witnes- 
ses " of Mr. Theodore D. Weld. Unique in Anti-Slavery literature is ^Irs. 
Childs's "Appeal," one of the ablest of our weapons, and one of the finest 
efforts of her rare gonitis. 



The Princeton Hevicw, I believe, first challenfjcd the Abolitionists to nn 
investiijation of tlio tcai'hin;j;^ of the lUble on Slavery. That Held had been 
somewhat broken by o;ir En;j;lish predecessors. But in England, the Pro- 
Slavery party had been soon shamed out of the attempt to drag the Bible 
into their service, and hence the discussion there had been short and some- 
what superficial. The Pro- Slavery side of the question has been eagerly 
sustained by Theological Reviews and Doctors of Divinity without number, 
from the half-way and timid faltering of "\Vayl.\.nd up to the unblushing 
and melancholy recklessness of Sto.vrt. The argument on the other side 
has come wholly from the Abolitionists. For neither Dr. ILvgue nor Dr. 
Barxks can be said to have added anything to the wide research, critical 
acumen, and comprehensive views of Theodork D. "Weld, Beriah Green-, 
J. G. Fee, ajid the old work of Duxcax. 

On the constitutional questions which have at various times arisen, — the 
citizenship of the colored man, the soundness of the " Prigg " decision, the 
constitutionality of the old Fugitive Slave Law, the true construction of 
the Slave surrender clause, — nothing has been added, either in the way of 
fact or argument, to the -works of Jaa', Weld, Alvan Stewakt, E. G. Lor- 
iNG, S. E. Sewall, Richard Hildreth, "W. I. Bowditch, the masterly 
Essays of the Emancipator at New York, and the Liberator at Boston, and 
the various addresses of the ^Massachusetts and American Societies for the 
last twenty years. The idea of the Anti- Slavery character of the Constitu- 
tion — the opiate with which Free Soil quiets its conscience for voting under 
a Pro-Slavery government — I heard first suggested by ilr. Garrisox in 
1838. It was elaborately argued in that year in all our Anti-Slavery gath- 
erings, both here and in New York, and sustained with great ability by 
Alvan Stewart, and in part by T. D. "Weld. If it has either merit or 
truth, they are due to no legal learning recently added to our ranks, but to 
some of its old and well known pioneers. This claim has since received the 
fullest investigation from Mr. Lysander Spooner, who has urged it with 
all liis unrivalled ingenuity, laborious research, and close logic. He writes 
as a lawyer, and has no wish, I believe, to be ranked with any class of Anti- 
Slavery meii. 

The influence of Slavery on our government has received the profoundcst 
philosophical investigation from the pen of Richard Hildreth, in Hs inval- 
uable essay on " Despotism in America," — a work which deserves a place 
by the side of the ablest political disciuisitions of any age. 

Mrs. Chapman's survey of "Ten Years of Anti-Slavery Experience," was 
the first attempt at a pliilosophical discussion of the various aspects of the 
Anti-Slavery cause, and the problems raised by its struggles with sect and 
party. You, Mr. Chairman, [Edmi-nd Qiixcv, Esq.,] in the elaborate Rc- 
poits of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society for the last ten years, have 
followed in the same path, making to American literature a contribution of 
the highest value, and in a department where you have few rivals and no 
superior. Whoever shall Avrite the history either of this movement, or any 
other attempted \mder a Republican Government, will find nowhere else so 
3 



14 SPEECH. 

clear an insight and so full an acquaintance with the most difficult part of 
liis subject. 

Even the vigorous mind of Rantoul, the ablest man, Avithout doubt, of 
the Democratic partj', and perhaps the ablest politician in New England, 
added little or nothing to the storehouse of Anti-Slavery argument. The 
grasp of his intellect and the fullness of his learning every one will acknowl- 
edge. He never trusted himself to speak on any subject till he had dug 
do-RTi to its primal granite. He laid a most generous contribution on the 
altar of the Anti-Slavery cause. His speeches on our question, too short 
and too few, are remarkable for their compact statement, iron logic, bold 
denunciations, and the wonderful light tlirown back upon our history. Yet 
how little do they present wliich was not familiar for years in our Anti- 
Slavery meetings ! 

Look, too, at the last great effort of the idol of so many thousands, 5Ir. 
Senator Sumner ; a discussion of a great national question, of which it has 
been said that we must go back to Weestek's Reply to Hatne, and Fisher 
Ames on the Jay Treaty, to find its equal in Congress ; — praise which we 
might perhaps qualify, if any adequate report were left us of some of those 
noble orations of Adams. No one can be blind to the skillful use he has 
made of liis materials, the consummate ability with which he has marshalled 
them, and the radiant glow which his genius has thrown over all. Yet, with 
the exception of liis reference to the Anti- Slavery debate in Congress in 
1817, there is no train of thought or argument, and no single fact in the 
whole speech, which has not been familiar in our meetings and essays for 
the last ten years. 

Before leaving the Halls of Congress, I have great pleasiu:e in recognising 
one exception to my remarks, Mr. Giddings. Perhaps he is no real excep- 
tion, since it would not be diffictilt to establish liis claim to be considered 
one of the origmal Abolition party. But whether he would choose to be so 
considered or not, it is certainly true that his long presence at the seat of 
government, liis whole-souled devotcdness, his sagacity and unwearied in- 
dustry, have made him a large contributor to our Anti-Slavery resources. 

The relations of the American Church to Slavery, and the duties of pri- 
vate Christians, — the whole casuistry of this portion of the question, so 
momentous among descendants of the Puritans, — have been discussed with 
great acuteness and rare common sense by Messrs. Garrison, Goodell, 
Gekrit Smith, Pillsbury, and Foster. They have never attempted to 
judge the American Church by any standard exce^Dt that which she has her- 
seK laid doA\ai — never claimed that she should be perfect, but have con- 
tented themselves with demanding that she should be consistent. They 
have never judged her except out o£ her own mouth, and on facts asserted 
by her ovm. presses and leaders. The sundering of the Methodist and Bap- 
tist denominations, and the imiversal agitation of the religious world, are 
the best proof of the sagacity with which their measui-es have been chosen, 
the cogent arguments they have used, and the indisputable facts on wliich 
their criticisms have been founded. 

In nothing have the AboUtionists shown more sagacitv or more thorough 



SPEECH. 15 

knowledge of their coiintrj'nicn, than in tlic course they have pursued in 
rehition to the Church. None but a New Bnghindcr can appreciate the 
power which Cliurch organizations wickl over all that sh:ire the blood of the 
Puritans. The influence of each sect over its o\\'n members is overwhcbn- 
ing, often shutting out, or controlling, all other influences. AVe have Popes 
here, all the more dangerous because no triple cro%\'n puts you on your 
guard. The Methodist priesthood brings Catholicism very vividly to mind. 
That each local church is independent of all others, we have been somewhat 
careful to assert, in theory and practice. The individual's independence of 
all organizations that place themselves between him and his God, some few 
bold minds have asserted in theory, but most even of those have stopped 
there. 

In such a land, the Abolitionists early saw, that for a moral question like 
theirs, only two paths lay open : to work through, the Church — that failing, 
to join battle with it. Some tried long, like Luther, to be Protestants, and 
yet not come out of Catholicism ; but their eyes were soon opened. Since 
then, we have been convinced that, to come out from the Church, to hold 
her up as the Bulwark of Slavery, and to make her shortcomings the main 
burden of our appeals to the religious sentiment of the commimity, was our 
first duty and best policy. This course alienated many friends, and was a 
subject of frequent rebulie from such men as Dr. CnAxxixG. But notliing 
has ever more strengthened the cause, or won it more influence ; and it has 
had the healthiest effect on the Church itself. British Christians have 
always sanctioned it, whenever the case has been fairly presented to them. 
Mr. John Quixcy Adams, a man far better acquainted with his o-wn times 
than Dr. Channixg, recognised the soundness of oiu- policy. I do not know 
that he ever uttered a word in public on the delinquency of the churches ; 
but he is said to have assured his son, at the time the Methodist Church 
broke asunder, that other men might be more stai-tled by the eclat of poKti- 
cal success, but notliing, in his opinion, promised more good, or showed 
more clearly the real strength of the Anti-Slavery movement, than that 
momentous event. 

In 1838, the British Emancipation in the West Indies opened a rich field 
for observation, and a fuU harvest of important facts. The Abolitionists, 
not willing to wait for the official reports of the government, sent special 
agents through those islands, whose reports they scattered, at great cxiiensc 
and by great exertion, broadcast through the land. Tliis was at a time when 
no newspaper in the country would either lend or sell them the aid of its 
columns to cnhghtcn the nation on an experiment so vitally important to us. 
And even now, hardly a press in the country cares or dares to bestow a line 
or communicate a fact toward the history of that remarkable revolution. 
The columns of the Anti-Slavery Standard, Pennsylvania Freeman, and Ohio 
Bugle, have been for years full of all that a thorough and patient advocacy 
of our cause demands. And the eloquent lips of many whom I see around 
me, and whom I need not name here, have done tlicir share toward pressing 
all these topics on public attention. 

I remember that when, in 18 lo, the present leaders of the Free Soil party. 



16 srEECu. 

■with. Daniel AVebster iu their company, met to draw ujj the Anti-Texas 
Address of the Massachusetts Convention, they sent to Abolitionists for 
Anti-Slavery facts and history, for the remarkable testimonies of our Revo- 
lutionary great men which they wished to quote. (" Hear, hear.") "When, 
many years ago, the Legislature of ^lassachusetts wished to send to Con- 
gress a resolution affirming the duty of immediate emancipation, the Com- 
mittee sent to William Lloyd Gariusox to draw it up, and it stands now 
on our Statute Book as he drafted it. 

How vigilantly, how patiently did we watch the Texas plot from its com- 
mencement ! The politic South felt that its first move liad been too bold, 
and thenceforward worked underground. For many a year, men laughed 
at us for entertaining any apprehensions. It was impossible to rouse the 
North to its peril. David Lee Child was thought crazy, because he would 
not believe there was no danger. His elaborate " Letters on Texan Annexa- 
tion " are the ablest and most valuable contribution that has been made 
towards a history of the whole plot. Though we foresaw and proclaimed 
our conviction that Annexation would be, in the end, a fatal step for the 
South, we did not feel at liberty to relax our opposition, well-knowing the 
vast increase of strength it would give, at first, to the Slave Power. I re- 
member being one of a Committee which waited on Abbott Lawrence, a 
year or two only before Annexation, to ask his countenance to some general 
movement, without distinction of party, against the Texas scheme. He 
smiled at our fears, begged us to have no apprehensions ; stating that Ms 
correspondence ^\-ith leading men at Washington enabled him to assure us 
Annexation was impossible, and that the South itself was determined to de- 
feat the project. A short wliile after. Senators and Representatives from 
Texas took their seats in Congress ! 

Many of these services to the Slave Avere clone before I joined his cause. 
In thus referring to them, do not suppose me merely seeking occasion of 
eulogy on my predecessors and present co-laborers. I recall these things 
only to rebut the contemptuous criticism which some about us make the 
excuse for their past neglect of the movement, and in answer to lox's repre- 
sentation of our course as reckless fanaticism, childish impatience, utter hick 
of good sense, and of our meetings as scenes only of excitement, of reckless 
and indiscriminate denunciation. I assert that everj' social, moral, economi- 
cal, religious, political, and historical aspect of the ciuestion has been ably 
and patiently examined. And all this has been done with an industry and 
ability which have left little for the professional skill, scholarly culture, and 
historical learning of the new laborers to accomplish. If the people are 
still in doubt, it is from the inherent difficulty of the subject, or a hatred of 
light, not from want of it. 

So far from the Anti-Slavery cause having lacked a manly and able dis- 
cussion, I think it will be acknowledged hereafter, that this discussion has 
been one of the noblest contributions to a literature really American. Here- 
tofore, not only has our tone been but an echo of foreign culture, but the 
very topics discussed and the views maintained have been too often pale re- 
flections of Eui-opcan politics and European philosophy. No matter what 



17 



tlrcss we assumed, the voice was ever "the voice of Jacob." At last wc 
have stirred a (juestii^n thoroiij^hly American. The subject has hecn looked 
at from a point of view entirely American ; and it is of such deep interest, 
that it has called out all the intellectual strength of the nation. For once, 
the nation speaks its own tliouj^hts, in its own language, and the tone also 
is all its own. It will hardly do for the defeated party to claim that, in this 
discussion, all the ability is on their side. 

We are charged with lacking foresight, and said to exaggerate. This 
chai'ge of exaggeration brings to my mind a fact I mentioned, last month, 
at Horticulturid Hall. The theatres, in many of our large cities, bring out, 
niglit after night, all the radical doctrines and all the startling scenes of 
" Uncle Tom." They preach immediate emancipation, and Slaves shoot 
their hunters to loud applause. Two years ago, sitting in this hall, I was 
myself somewhat st^irtled by the assertion of my friend, Mr. Pili.siuiiv, 
that the theatres Avould receive the gospel of Anti-Slavery truth earlier than 
the churches. A liiss went up from the galleries, and many in the audience 
were shocked by the remark. I asked myself whether I covdd endorse such 
a statement, and felt that I could not. I could not believe it to be true. 
Ordy two years have passed, and what was then deemed rant and fanaticism, 
by seven out of ten who heard it, has proved true. The theatre, bo^\-ing to 
its audience, has preached immediate emancipation, and given us the whole 
of '♦ Uncle Tom ; " while the pulpit is either silent or hostile, and in the 
columns of the theological papers, the work is subjected to criticism, to re- 
proach, and its author to severe rebuke. Do not, therefore, friends, set 
down as extravagant every statement which your experience does not war- 
rant. It may be that you and I have not studied the signs of the times 
quite as accurately as the speaker. Going up and do^vn the land, coming 
into close contact with the feelings and prejudices of the community, he is 
sometimes a better judge than you are of its present state. An Abolitionist 
has more motives for watching and more means of finding out the true state 
of public opinion, than most of those careless critics who jeer at his assex-- 
tions to-day, and are the first to en-, " Just what / said," wlien his prophecy 
becomes fact to-morrow. 

Mr. Ion thinks, also, that wc have thrown away opportimitics, and need- 
lessly outraged the men and parties about us. Far from it. The Anti- 
Slavcrj- movement ^\■as a patient and humble suppliant at every door whence 
any helj) could possibly be hojjed. K we now repudiate and denoimee some 
of ovu: institutions, it is because we have faithfully tried them, and found 
them deaf to the claims of justice and humanity. Our great Leader, when 
he first meditated this crusade, did not 

" At oucc, like a 8uuburst, bLi banner unfurl." 

O, no I he sounded his way warily forward. Brought up in the strictest 
reverence for church organizations, his first effort was to enlist the clergymen 
of Boston in the support of his views. On their aid he coimtcd confidently 
in his effort to preach immediate repentance of all sin. He cUd not go, with 



18 SPEECH. 

malice prepense, as some seem to imagine, up to that " attic " where Mayor 
Otis with difficxilty found him. He did not court hostihty or seek exile. 
He did not sedulously endeavor to cut himself off from the sympathy and 
countenance of the community about him. 0, no ! A fervid disciple of 
the American Church, he conferred with some of the leading clergy of the 
city, and laid before them his convictions on the subject of Slavery.* He 
painted their responsibility, and tried to induce them to take from his shoul- 
ders the burden of so mighty a movement. He laid himself at their feet. 
He recognised the colossal strength of the Church ; he knew that agamst 
their opposition it would be almost desperate to attempt to relieve the Slave. 
He entreated them, therefore, to take up the cause. But the Church turned 
away from him ! They shut their doors upon liim ! They bade him com- 
promise his convictions — smother one half of them, and support the Colo- 
nization movement, making his own auxihary to that, or they would have 
none of him. Like Luther, he said — " Here I stand ; God help me ; I can 
do nothing else ! " But the men who jomed him were not persuaded that 
the case was so desperate. So they returned, each to his own local sect, and 
remained in them until some of us, myself among the number — later con- 
verts to the Anti-. Slavery movement — thought they were slow and faltering 
in their obedience to conscience, and that they ought to have cut loose much 
sooner than they did. But a patience, that old sympatliies would not allow 
to be exhausted, and associations, planted deeply in youth, and spreading 
over a large part of manhood, were too strong for any mere argument to dis- 
lodge them. So they still persisted in remaining in the Church. Their zeal 
was so fervent and their labors so abundant, that in some towns large socie- 
ties were formed, led by most of the clergymen, and having almost all the 
church members on their Usts. In those same towns now, you will not find 
one single Abolitionist, of any stamp whatever. They excuse their falling 
back by alleging that we have injured the cause by our extravagance and 
denunciation, and by the various other questions with which our names are 
associated. This might be a good reason why they should not work with 
tis, but does it excuse their not working at aU ? These people have been 
once awakened, thoroughly instructed in the momentous character of the 
movement, and have acknowledged the rightful claim of the Slave on theii- 
sympathy and exertions. It is not possible that a few thousand persons, 
however extravagant, could prevent devoted men from finding some way to 
help such a cause, or at least manifesting their interest in it. But they have 



* " The writer accompanied Mr. Garrison, in 1829, in calling upon a number of prominent 
ministers in Boston, to secure their co-operation in this cause. Our expectations of important 
assistance from tliem loere, at that time, very sanguine.'^ — [Testimony of VflLLlAU Goodell, 
in a recent jvork entitled "Slavery and Anti-Slavery."] 

In an address on Slavery and Colonization, delivered by Mr. Garrison, in the Tark Street 
Church, Boston, .Tuly 4, 1829, (which was subserjuently publislicd in tlie National Philanthro- 
pist,) he said — " I call on tlio ambassadors of Christ, everywhere, to make known this procla- 
mation, ' Thus saith the Lord God of the Africans, Let this people go, that they may serve me.' 
I ask them to ' proclaim liberty to the captive, and the opening of the prison to them that are 
bound.' I call on the churches of the living God to LEAD in this great enterprise." 



SPEECH. I'J 

not only loft us, they have utterly deserted the Slave, in the lionr when the 
interest of their sects tame across liis cause. Is it uncharitable to conjecture 
the reason ? At the early period, however, to whicli I have referred, the 
Church was much exercised by tlic persistency of tlic Abolitionists in not 
going out from her. ^Vhen I joined the Anti-Shivcry ranks, sixteen years 
ago, the voice of the clergy was, " "Will these pests never leave us .- Will 
they still remain to trouble us ? If yo\i do not like us, there is the door .' " 
When our friends had exhausted all entreaty, and tested the Christianity of 
that body, they shook off the dust of their feet, and came out of her. 

At the outset, ^Ir. G.vurisox called on the head of the Orthodox denom- 
ination — a man, compared with Avhose influence on the mind of New Eng- 
land, that of the statesman whose death you have just mourned was, I think, 
but as dust in the balance — a man who then held the Orthodoxy of Boston 
in his right hand, and who has since taken up the "West by its four comers, 
and given it so largely to Pimtanism — I mean the Rev. Dr. Lvmax 
Beecher. Mr. Gahrison was one of those who bowed to the spell of the 
matchless eloquence that then fulmined over our Zion. He waited on liis 
favorite divine, and urged him to give to the new movement the incalculable 
aid of his name and countenance. He was patiently heard. He was allowed 
to unfold his plans and array his facts. The reply of the veteran was, " Mr. 
G.-VKiiisoN, I have too many ii-ons in the fire to put m. another." 'Sly friend 
said, " Doctor, you had better take all the irons you have in the fire out, 
and put tliis one in, if you mean well either to the reUgion or tlic civil lib- 
erty of our country." (Cheers.) 

The great Orthodox leader did not rest with merely refusing to put another 
iron into Ms fu-e ; he attempted to limit the irons of other men. As Presi- 
dent of Lane Theological Seminary, he endeavored to prevent the students 
from investigating the subject of Slavery. The restdt, we all remember, 
was a strenuous resistance on the part of a large number of the students, led 
by that remarkable man^ Theodore D. Weed. The Right triumphed, and 
Lane Seminary lost her character and noblest pupils at the same time. 
She has languished ever since, even with such a President. Why should I 
follow Dr. Beecher into those Ecclesiastical Conventions where he lias been 
tried, and foiuid wanting, in fidelity to the Slave ? He has done no worse, 
indeed, he has done much better, than most of his class. His opposition has 
been always open and manly. 

But, Mr. Chairman, there is something in the blood, wliich, men tell us, 
brings out virtues and defects, even when they have lain dormant for a gen- 
eration. Good and evil qualities are hereditary, the physicians say. The 
blood whose warm currents of eloc^ucnt aid my friend solicited in vain in 
that generation, has sprung voluntarily to his .assistance in the next — both 
from the pulpit and the press — td rouse the world by the ■sngor and pathos 
of its appeals. (Enthusiastic cheers.) Even on that great triiunph I would 
say a word. Marked and uneciualled as has been that success, remember, in 
explanation of the phenomenon — for "Uncle Tom's Cabin " is rather an 
event than a book — remember this : if the old Anti- Slavery movement had 
not roused the sympathies of Mrs. Stowe, the book had never been written ; 



20 SPEFX'II. 

if that movement had not raised up himdreds of thousands of hearts to sym- 
pathise with the Slave, the book had never been read. (Cheers.) Not that 
the genius of the author has not made the triumph all her own ; not that 
the unrivalled felicity of its execution has not trebled, quadrupled, increased 
ten-fold, if you please, the number of readers ; but there must be a spot even 
for Archimedes to rest his lever upon, before he can move the world, (ap- 
plause,) and this effort of genius, consecrated to the noblest purpose, might 
have fallen dead and tmnoticed in 1835. It is the Anti-Slavery movement 
which has changed 1835 to 1852, Those of us familiar with Anti-Slavery 
literature know well that Richard Hildeeth's " Archy Moore," now " The 
White Slave," was a book of eminent ability ; that it owed its want of success 
to no lack of genius, but only to the fact, that it was a work born out of due 
time ; that the Anti-Slavery cause had not then aroused sufficient numbers, 
on the wings of whose enthusiasm even the most delightful fiction could 
have risen into world-wide influence and repute. To the cause which had 
changed 1835 to 1852 is due something of the influence of " Uncle Tom's 
Cabin." 

The Abolitionists have never overlooked the wonderful power that the 
wand of the novelist was yet to wield in their behalf over the hearts of 
the world. Fkederika Bremer only expressed the common sentiment 
of many of us, when she declared that " the fate of the negro was the 
romance of our history." Again and again, from my earliest knowledge of 
the cause, have I heard the opinion, that, in the debateable land between 
Freedom and Slavery, in the thrilHng incidents of the escape and suffermgs 
of the fugitive, and the perils of his friends, the future Walter Scott of 
America would find the " border-land " of his romance, and the most touch- 
ing incidents of his " sixty years since ; " and that the literature of America 
would gather its freshest laurels from that field. 

So much, Mr. Chairman, for our treatment of the Church. We clung to 
it as long as we hoped to make it useful. Disappointed in that, we have 
tried to expose its paltering and hypocrisy on this question, broadly and 
with unflinching boldness, in hopes to purify and bring it to our aid. Oiu- 
labors Avith the great religious societies, with the press, with the institutions 
of learning, have been as untking, and almost as unsuccessful. We have 
tried to do our duty to every jjublic question that has arisen, which could 
be made serviceable in rousing general attention. The Right of Petition, 
the Power of Congress, the Internal Slave Trade, Texas, the Compromise 
measures, the Fugitive Slave Law, the motions of leading men, the tactics of 
parties, have all been watched and used with sagacity and effect as means to 
produce a change in public opinion. Dr. Channing has thanked the Abo- 
lition party, in the name of all the lovers of free thought and free speech, for 
having vindicated that right, when all others seemed ready to surrender it ; 
vindicated it at tlic cost of reputation, case, property, even life itself. The 
only blood that has ever been shed, on this side the ocean, in defence of the 
freedom of the press, was the blood of Lovejot, one of their number. In 
December, 1836, Dr. Channino spoke of their position in these terms : — 



Sl'KKCII. '21 

" Whilst, in obedience to conscience, they have refrained from opposing 
force to force, they have still jierscvcroil, amidst menace and insult, in bear- 
ing; their testimony ni,'ainst -wron!:;, in ^^ivin;; utterance to tlicir deep convic- 
tions. Of such men, I do not hesitate to say, that they have rendered to 
freedom a more essential service than any body of men among us. Tlic de- 
fenders of freedom are not those who claim and exercise riglits wliich no one 
assails, or Avho win shouts of ajiplauso by well-turned compliments to lil)erty 
in the days of licr triumph. They are those who stand uj) for rights which 
mobs, conspiracies, or single tyrants ])ut in jeopardy ; Avho contend for lib- 
erty in that particular form which is threatened at the moment by the many 
or the few. To the Abolitionists this lionor belongs. The tirst systematic 
effort to strip tlie citizen of freedom of spcecli, they have met with invincible 
resolution. From my lieart I thank them. I am myscK their debtor. I am 
not sure tliat I should tliis nmment write in safet}-, had they shrunk from 
the conilict, had they shut their lips, imposed silence on their presses, and 
hid themselves before their ferocious assailants. I know not where these 
outrages would have stojipcd, had they not met resistance from their first 
destined victims. The news])aper press, with a few exceptions, uttered no 
genuine indignaiit rebuke of tlie wrong-doers, but rather countenanced by its 
gentle censures tlie reign of Force. The mass of the people looked supinely 
on this new tyranny, under wliich a portion of their fellow-citi/.ens seemed 
to be sinking. A tone of denunciation was beginning to proscribe all discus- 
.sion of Slavery ; and had the spirit of violence, which selected associations as 
its first objects, succeeded in this preparatory enterprise, it might have been 
easily turned against any and every individual, who might presume to agi- 
tate the unwelcome subject. It is hard to say, to what outrage the fettered 
press of the country might not have been reconciled. I thank the Aboli- 
tionists that, in this evil day, they were true to the rights which tlie multi- 
tude were ready to betray. Their purpose to suffer, to die, rather than sur- 
render their dearest liberties, taught the lawless that they had a foe to con- 
tend with, whom it was not safe to press, whilst, like all manly appe;Us, it 
called forth refiection and sj-mpathy in the better portion of the community. 
In the name of freedom and humanity, I thank them." 

Xo one, Mr. Chairman, deserves more of that honor than he whose chair 
you now occupy. Our youthful city can boast of but few places of historic 
reno-\vn. But I know no one which coming time is more likely to keep in 
memory, than the roof wliich Francis Jacksox offered to the Anti- Slavery 
women of Boston, when Mayor Lymax confessed he was unable to protect 
their meeting, and when the only protection the laws could afford Mr. Gar- 
rison' was the shelter of the common jail. 

Sir, when a nation sets itself to do evil, and all its leading forces, wealth, 
party, and piety, joijx in the career, it is impossible but that those who offer 
a constant opposition should be hated and maligned, no matter how wise, 
cautious, and well-planned their course may be. We are peculiar sufferers 
in tlus way. The community has come to hate its reproving Nathan so 
bitterly, that even those whom the relenting part is beginning to regard as 
standard-bearers of the Anti-Slavery host, think it imwise to avow any con- 
nection or s)-mpathy with him. I refer to some of the leaders of the pohtical 
movement against Slavery. They feel it to be their mission to marshal and 
use as effectively as possible the present convictions of the people. They 
cannot afford to encumber themselves witli the odium which twenty years of 
angry agitation have engendered in great sects sore from luisparing rebuke, 
parties galled by constant defeat, and leading men provoked by unexpected 
4 



22 SPEECH. 

exposure. They are willing to confess, prirately, that out movement pro- 
duced theirs, and that its contmued existence is the Tery breath of their 
life. But, at the same time, they would fam walk on the road, without being 
soiled by too close contact with the rough pioneers who threw it up. They 
are wise and honorable, and their sUence is very expressive. 

When I speak of their eminent position and acknowledged ability, another 
thought strikes me. "Who converted these men and their distinguished 
associates ? It is said we have shown neither sagacity in plans, nor candor 
in discussion, nor ability in argument. Who then or what converted Bur- 
LiNGAME and Wilson, Sumner and Adams, Palfkey and Mann, Chase and 
Hale, and Phillips and Giddings ? Who taught the Christian Register, 
the Daily Advertiser, and that class of prints, that there were such things 'as 
a Slave and a Slaveholder in the land, and so gave them some more intelli- 
gent basis than their mere instincts to hate William Lloyd Garrison ? 
(Shouts and laughter.) What magic wand was it whose touch made the 
toadying servility of the land start up the real demon that it was, and at the 
same time gathered mto the Slave's service the professional ability, ripe cul- 
ture, and personal integrity that grace the Prce Soil ranks? We never 
argue ! These men, then, were converted by simple denunciation ! They 
were all converted by the "hot," "reckless," "ranting," "bigoted," "fa- 
natic" Garrison, who never troubled himself about facts, nor stopped to 
argue with an opponent, but straightway knocked him down ! (Roars of 
laughter and cheers.) My old and valued friend, Mr. Sumneb, often boasts 
that he was a reader of The Liberator before I was. Do not criticise too 
much the agency by which such men Avere converted. That blade has a 
double edge. Our reckless course — our empty rant — our fanaticism, has 
made AboHtionists of some of the best and ablest men iu the land. We are 
inclined to go on, and see if even with such poor tools we caimot make some 
more. (Enthusiastic applause.) Anti-Slavery zeal and the roused con- 
science of the " godless comcoutcrs " made the trembling South demand the 
Fugitive Slave Law ; and the Fugitive Slave Law " provoked" Mrs. Sxowe 
to the good work of "Uncle Tom." That is sometliing ! (Cheers.) Let 
me say, in passing, that you will nowhere find an earlier or more generous 
appreciation, or more flowing eulogy, of these men and theu- labors, tlian 
in the columns of The Liberator. No one, however feeble, has ever peeped 
or muttered, in any quarter, that the vigilant eye of the Pioneer has not 
recognised him. He has stretched out the right hand of a most cordial wel- 
come the moment any man's face was turned Zionward. (Loud cheers.) 

I do not mention these things to praise Mr. Garrison ; I do not stand 
here for that purpose. You will not deny — if you do, I can prove it — that 
the movement of the Abohtionists converted these men. Their constituents 
were converted by it. The assault upon the right of petition, upon the right 
to print and speak of Slavery, the denial of the right of Congress over the 
District, the annexation of Texas, the Fugitive Slave Law, were measiu'es 
which the An ti- Slavery movement provoked, and the discussion of which 
has made all the Abohtionists we have. The Anti-Slavery cause, then, con- 
verted these men ; it gave them a constituency ; it gave them an opportunity 



SPEECH. 23 

to speak, and it gave tlicm a jniblic to listen. The Anti-Slavcrj' cause gave 
them their votes, gave them their oflices, furnished them their facts, gave 
them their audience. If you tell mc they cherished all these principles in 
theu" own breasts before Mr. Garkison appeared, I can only say, if the Anti- 
Slavery movement did not give them their ideas, it surely gave them the 
courage to utter them. 

In such circumstances, is it not singular that the name of William Lloyd 
Gakuison' has never been pronounced on the floor of the United States Con- 
gress, linked A^-ith any epithet but that of contempt ! No one of those men 
■who owe their ideas, their station, their audience, to him, have ever thought 
it -wortli thcu" -while to utter one word in grateful recognition of the power 
that called them into being. When obliged, by the course of their argu- 
ment, to treat the question liistoricaUy, they can go across the water to 
Clauksox and Wilberforce — yes, to a safe salt-water distance. (Laugh- 
ter.) As Daniel Webster, when he was talking to the farmers of Western 
New York, and wished to contrast Slave labor and Free labor, did not dare 
to compare New York with Virginia — sister States under the same govern- 
ment, planted by the same race, worslujiping at the same altar, speaking the 
same language, — identical in all respects, save that one in which he •nished 
to seek the contrast; but, no ; he compared it with Brazil — (cheers and 
laughter,) — the contrast was so close! (Renewed cheers.) Catholic — 
Protestant ; Spanish — Saxon ; despotism — municii^al institutions ; readers 
of Lope de Vega and of Shakspeare ; mutterers of the Mass — chilcU'en of the 
Bible ! But Virginia is too near home ! So is Garrisox ! One would have 
thought there was something in the human breast that would sometimes 
break through policy. These noble-hearted men whom I have named must 
sui-ely have found quite ii-ksome the constant practice of what Dr. Gardner 
used to call " that despicable virtue, prudence " ! — (laughter) — one would 
have thought, when they heard that name spoken with contempt, then- ready 
eloquence would have leaped from its scabbard to avenge even a word tliat 
threatened liim with insult. But it never came — never ! (Sensation.) I 
do not say I blame them. Perhaps they thought they shoiild serve the cause 
better by drawing a broad black line between themselves and him. Perhaps 
they thought the devil could be cheated ; — I do not think he cim. (Laugh- 
ter and cheers.) 

We are perfectly willing — I am for one — to be the dead lumber that 
sliall make a path for these men into the Hght and love of the people. We 
hope for nothing better. Use us freely, in any way, for the Slave. AVhen 
the temple is flnished, the tools will not complain that they are tlirown 
aside, let who -will lead up the nation to " jmt on the topstone -VA-ith shout- 
ings." But while so much remains to be done, wliile our little camp is 
beleagured all about, do nothing to weaken liis influence, whose sagacity, 
more than any other single mim's, has led ils up hitlier, and whose name is 
identifled with that movement which the North still heeds, and the South 
still fears the most. After all, Mr. Chairman, this is no hard task. We 
know very well, that, notwithstanding this loud clamor about our harsh 
judgments of men and things, oiu- opinions difler very little from those of 



24 SPEECH. 

our Free Soil friends, or of intelligent men generally, when you really. get at 
them. It has even been said, that one of that family -which has made itself 
so infamously conspicuous here, in executmg the Fugitive Slave Law, a 
Judge, whose earnest defence of that Law we all heard in FaneuU. Hall, did 
himself, but a little while before, arrange for a fugitive to be hid tiU piirsuit 
was over. I hope it is true — it would be an honorable inconsistency. And 
if it be not true of him, we know it is of others. Yet it is base to incite 
others to deeds, at which, whenever we are hidden from public notice, our 
own hearts recoil ! But thus we see that when men lay aside the judicial 
ermine, the senator's robe, or the party collar, and sit do■\^^l in private life, 
you can hardly distinguish their tones from ours. Their eyes seem as 
anointed as our otoii. As ia Pope's day — 

" At all we laugh they laugh, no doubt ; 

The only difference is, we dare laugh out.'''' 

Caution is not always good policy in a cause like om-s. It is said that 
when Napoleon saw the day going against him, he used to throw away all 
the rules of war, and trust himself to the hot impetuosity of his soldiers. 
The masses are governed more by impulse than conviction ; and even were 
it not so, the convictions of most men are on our side, and this will surely 
appear, if we can only pierce the crust of their prejudice or indift'erence. I 
observe that our Free Soil friends never stir their audience so deeply as 
when some individual leaps beyond the platform, and strikes upon the very 
heart of the people. !Men listen to discussions of laws and tactics with omi- 
nous patience. It is when Mr. Sumner, in Faneuil Hall, avows his determi- 
nation to disobey the Fugitive Slave Law, and cries out, " I was a man 
before I was a Commissioner," — when Mr. Giddings says of the fall of 
Slavery, quoting Adams, " Let it come ; if it must come in blood, yet I say, 
LET IT come!" — that their associates on the platform are sure they are 
wrecking the party — while many a heart beneath beats its first pulse of 
An ti- Slavery life. 

These are brave words. When I compare them with the general tone of 
Free Soil men in Congress, I distrust the atmosphere of Washington and of 
politics. These men move about, Sauls and Goliaths among us, taller by 
many a cubit. There they lose port and stature. Mr. Sumner's speech in 
the Senate unsays no part of his Faneuil Hall pledge. But, though discuss- 
ing the same topic, no one would gather from any word or arg\imcnt that 
the speaker ever took such ground as he did in Faneuil Hall. It is all 
through, the law, the manner of the surrender, not the surrender itself, of 
the Slave that he objects to. As my friend Mr. Pillsburt so forcibly says, 
so far as anything in the speech shows, he puts the Slave behind the jury 
trial, behind the habeas corpus act, and beliind the new interpretation of the 
Constitution, and says to the Slave claimant — " You must get through all 
these, before you reach him ; but if you can get through all these, you may 
have him ! " It was no tone like this which made the old Hall rock ! Not 
if ho got through twelve jury trials, and forty habeas corjnis acts, and Con- 
stitutions biiilt high as yonder moniunent, would he permit so much as the 



25 



shadow of the little finger of the Slave claimant to touch the Slave ! (Great 
applause.) At least, so he Avas understood. In an elaborate discussion by 
the leader of the political Anti-Slavery party, of the -whole topic of Fugi- 
tive Slaves, you do not find one protest against the surrender itself, one 
frank expression on the constitutionid clause, or any indication of the speak- 
er's final purpose, should any one be properly claimed under that provision. 
It was under no such uncertain trumpet that the Anti-Slavery host was 
originally marshalled. The tone is that of the German soldiers whom Na- 
poleon routed. They did not care, they said, for the defeat, but only that 
they were not beat according to rule. (Laughter and cheers.) Mr. Mann, 
in his speech Tebruary 15, 18.50, says : — " Tue STATES I3EIXG SEPA- 
RATED, I WOULD AS SOON KETURN MY OWN BROTHER OR SISTER INTO 
BONDAGE, AS I WOULD RETURN A FUGITIVE SLAVE. BeiORE GoD, AND 

Christ, and all CiiRisnAx men, they are my brothers and sisTEiis." 
What a condition ! from the lips, too, of a champion of the Higher Law ! 
"Whether the States be separate or united, neither my brother nor any other 
man's brother shall, with my consent, go back to bondage. (Enthusiastic 
cheers.) So speaks the heart — Mr. Mann's version is that of the politician. 

Mr. ALvnn's recent speech in August, 1852, has the same non-committal 
tone to which I have alluded in Mr. Sumner's. Wliilo professing, in the 
most eloquent terms, liLs loyalty to the Higher Law, Mr. Suthei£i,.\nd 
asked — " Is there, in Mr. Manx's opinion, any conflict between that Higher 
Law and the Constitution ? If so, what is it .^ K not so, why introduce 
an irrelevant topic into the debate .'' " Mr. Mann avoickd any reply, and 
asked not to be interrupted! Is that the frankness which becomes an 
Abolitionist .' Can such concealment help any cause ? The design of Mr. 
Sutherland is evident. If Mr. Mann had allowed there was no conflict 
between the Higher Law and the Constitution, all his remarks were futile, 
and out of order. But if he asserted that any such conflict existed, how 
did he justify himself in swearing to support that instrument ? — a question 
our Free Soil friends are slow to meet. Mr. Mann saw the dilemma, and 
avoided it by silence ! 

The same speech contains the usual deprecatory assertions that Free Soil- 
ers have no -wish to interfere with Slavery in the States ; that they " consent 
to let Slavery remain where it is." If he means that he, Horace Mann, a 
moral and accountable being, " consents to let Slavery remain where it is," 
all the rest of his speech is sound and fury, signifj-ing nothing. If he means 
that he, Horace Mann, as a polUicUin and party man, consents to that, but, 
elsewhere and other^-ise, will do his best to abolish this " all-comprehending 
wickedness of Slavery, in which every -WTong and every crime has its natu- 
r£d home " — then he should have plainly said so. Otherwise, his disclaimer 
is but an unworthy trick, which could have deceived none. He must have 
known that all the South care for is the action, not in what cajnicify the deed 
is done. 

Mr. GinnixGS is more carefid in his statement ; but, judged by his speeol> 
on the "Platforms," how little does he seem to understand either his own 
duty, or the true philosophy of the cause he serves ! He says — 



26 SPEECH. 

*' We, Sir, woiLld drive the Slave question from discussion in this Hall, 
It never had a constitutional existence here. Separate tliis Government 
from all interference with Slavery ; let the Federal Power wash its hands 
from that institution ; let us purify ourselves from its contagion ; leave it 
with the States, who alone have the power to sustain it — then, Su', will 
agitation cease in regard to it here ; then we shall have nothing more to do 
Avith it ; our time will be no more occupied with it ; and, like a band of 
freemen, a band of brothers, we could meet here, and legislate for the pros- 
perity, the improvement of mankind, for the elevation of our race." 

Mr. Sumner speaks in the same strain. He says ■ — 

" The time Avill come when Courts or Congress will declare, that nowhere 
under the Constitution can man hold property in man. For the republic, 
such a decree will be the way of peace and safety. As Slavery is banished 
from the National jm-isdiction, it will cease to vex oiu- National politics. It 
may linger in the States as a local institution, but it mil no longer endanger 
national animosities when it no longer demands national support." * * * 
" For himself, he knows no better aim under the Constitution than to bring 
the Government back to the precise position which it occupied " when it 
was launched. 

This seems to me a very mistaken strain. Whenever Slavery is banished 
from oui" National jurisdiction, it will be a momentous gain, a vast stride. 
But let us not mistake the half-way house for the end of the journey. I 
need not say that it matters not to Abohtioiusts under what special law 
Slavery exists. Their battle lasts while it exists anywhere, and I doubt not 

y Mr. SuMNES and Mr. Giddings feel themselves enlisted for the whole war. 
I will even sup^DOse, what neither of these gentlemen states, that their plan 
includes not ordy that Slavery shall be aboKshed in the District and Territo- 
ries, but that the Slave basis of representation shall be struck fi-om the 
Constitution, and the Slave-surrender clause construed away. But even 
then, does Mr. Giddixgs or Mr. Sumner really believe that Slavery, exist- 
ing in its full force in the States, " will cease to vex oru: national politics .' " 
Can they point to any State where a powerful oligarchy, possessed of im- 

^ mense wealth, has ever existed, without attemptmg to meddle in the govern- 
ment .■" Even now, do not manufacturing, banking, and commercial capital 
perpetually vex our politics .' Why should not Slave capital exert the same 
influence .' Do they imagine that a hundred thousand men, possessed of 
two thousand millions of dollars, which they feel the spirit of the age is seek- 
ing to tear from their grasp, will not eagerly catch at all the support they 
can obtain by getting the control of the Government .'' In a land where the 
dollar is abnighty, " where the sm of not being rich is only atoned for by 
the effort to become so," do they doubt that such an oUgarchy will generally 
succeed .' Besides, banking and manufacturing capital are not urged by 
despau- to seek a controllmg influence in politics. They know they are 
about equally safe, whichever piu'ty rules — that no party wishes to legislate 
their rights away. Slave property knows that its being allowed to exist de- 
pends on its having the virtual control of the Government. Its constant 
presence in politics is dictated, therefore, by despair as well as by the msh 



SPEKCII, 27 

to secure fresh privilci^cs. Money, however, is not the only strength of the 
Slave Power. That indeed were cnoufjh in an age when capitalists are our 
feudid barons. But, thougli cb-ivcn entirely from Nation:d slioltcr, the Slave- 
holders Avoidd have the strcngtli of old associations, and of peculiar laws in 
their own States, which gives those States wholly into their hands. A 
weaker prestige, fewer privileges, and less comparative wealth, have enabled 
the British aristocracy to rule England for two centuries, though the root 
of their strength was cut at Nascby. It takes ages for deeply rooted insti- 
tutions to die. And driving Slavery into the States will hardly be our 
Naseby. Whoever, therefore, lays the flattering unction to his soul, that 
while Slavery exists anyivhere in the States, our legislators will sit doiivn 
" like a band of brothers," — uuless they are all Slaveholding brothers, — is 
doomed to find himself wofully mistaken, ilr. Adams, ten years ago, re- 
fused to sanction this doctrine of his friend, Mr. Giddings, combating it 
ably and eloquently in liis well-known reply to Ixgersoll. Though ^Ir. 
Adams touches on but one poiiat, the principle he lays down has many other 
applications. 

But is Mr. GiDDixGs -n-illing to sit down with Slaveholders, " like a band 
of brothers," knowing all the time that they are tyrants at home, and not 
seek to use the common strength to protect their victims ? Does he not 
know that it is impossible for Free States and Slave States to unite under 
any form of Constitution, no matter how clean the parchment may be, with- 
out the compact resulting in new strength to the Slave system ? It is the 
unimpaired strength of Massachusetts and New York, and the youthful vigor 
of Oliio, that, even now, enable bankrupt Carolina to hold up the institution. 
Every nation must maintain peace within her limits. No government can 
exist which does not fulfil that function. ^Micn we say the L'nion will 
maintain, peace in Carolina, that being a Slave State, what does " peace " 
mean .' It means keeping the Slave beneath the heel of his master. Now, 
even on the principle of two wrongs m;xking a right, if we put this great 
weight of a common government into the scale of the Slaveholder, we are 
bound to add something equal to the Slave's side. But, no ; Mr. Giddings 
is content to give the Slaveholder the irresistible and organic help of a com- 
mon government, and bind himself to utter no word, and move not a finger, 
in his civil capacity, to help the Slave ! An Abolitionist would fijid himself 
not much at home, I fancy, in that " band of brothei-s " ! 

And Jlr. Sumxeh " knows no better aim, under the Constitution, than to 
bring back the Government" to where it was in 1789 ! Has the voyage 
been so very honest and prosperous a one, in his opinion, that his only wish 
is to start again ^vith the same sliip, the same crew, and the same sailing or- 
ders .' Grant all he claims, as to the state of public opinion, the intentions 
of leading men, and the form of our institutions at that period ; stUI, with 
all these checks on •\\"icked men, and helps to good ones, here we are, accord- 
ing to his own showing, ruled by Slavery, tainted to the core with Slavery, 
and binding the infamous Fugitive Slave Law like an honorable frontlet on 
our brows ! The more accurate and trutliful his glowing picture of the pub- 
lic virtue of 1789, the stronger my argument. If even all those great patri- 



28 SPEECH. 

ots, and all tliat enthusiasm for justice and liberty, did not avail to keep us 
safe in such a Union, what -will ? In such desiderate circumstances, can his 
statesmanship devise no better aim than to try the same experiment over 
again, under precisely the same conditions ? What new guarantees does 
he propose to prevent the voyage from being turned again into a piratical 
Slave-trading cruise ? None ! Have sixty years taught us nothing ? In 
1660, the English thought, in recalling Charles II., that the memory of that 
scaffold -wliich had once darkened the windows of Whitehall, would be guar- 
antee enough for his good behaviour. But, spite of the spectre, Charles II. 
repeated Charles I., and James outdid him. Wiser by this experience, when 
the nation, in 1689, got another chance, they trusted to no guarantees, but 
so arranged the very elements of their government, that William III. could 
not repeat Charles I. Let us profit by the lesson. These mistakes of lead- 
ing men merit constant attention. Such remarks, as those I have quoted, 
uttered from the high places of political life, however carefully guarded, 
have a sad influence on the rank and file of the party. By such speeches 
and avowals, the Free Soil presses are encouraged to advise, as in Ohio, that 
we should be satisfied to have Slaves sent back, for the present, by State 
authority and jury trials ; holding out the hope that thus we shall sooner 
and more readily abolish the whole system. The Anti- Slavery awakening 
has cost too many years and too much labor to risk letting its energy be 
turned into a wrong channel, or balked by fruitless experiments. Neither 
the Slave nor the country must be cheated a second time. 

Ml". Chairman, when I remember the grand port of these men elsewhere, 
and witness this confusion of ideas, and veiling of their proud crests to party 
necessities, they seem to me to lose in Washington something of their old 
giant proportions. How often have we witnessed this change ! It seems 
the inevitable result of political life under any government, but especially 
under ours : and we ai"e surprised at it in these men, only because we fondly 
hoped they would be exceptions to the general rule. It was Chamfort, I 
think, who first likened a Republican Senate House to Milton's Pandemo- 
nium ; — another proof of the rare insight French writers have shown in 
criticising Republican Institutions. The Capitol at Washington always 
brings to my mind that other Capitol, which in Milton's great Epic '• rose 
like an exhalation " " from the burning marl " — that towered palace, •' with 
starry lamps and blazing cressets " hung — with "roof of fretted gold" and 
stately height, its haU " like a covered field." You remember, Sir, the host 
of archangels gathered round it, and how tliick the airy crowd 

" Swarmed and were straitened ; till, the signal given, 
Behold a wonder ! They but now who seemed 
In bigness to surpass earth's giant sons, 
Now less than smallest dwarfs, in narrow room 
Throng numberless, like that pygmean race 
ISeyond the Indian mount ; or fairy elves. 
Whose midnight revels, by a forest side 
Or fountain, some belated peasant sees. 

Thus incorporeal spirits to smallest forms 
Reduced their shapes immense, and were at large, 
Though without number still, amid the hall 
Of that infernal court." 



si'KKcir. 29 

Ml-. Chainnan, they got no liuther than the hall ! (Cheers.) They were 
not, in the current phrase, " a healthy party ! " The healthy party, — the 
men who made no compromise hi order to come under that art-h, — Milton 
describes further on, where ho says — 

■ •' But far within, 



Ami in their omi dimcn;<ions, like thomsclvcj). 
The great seraphic lords and chcrubiiu, 
III close rcces.M and secret conclave, jiat ; 
A thousand demi-;r<>ils on Roldun seats 
Fre<iuent and full.' 

These were the healthy party I (^Loud applause.) Tliese are the Casses 
and the Housxoxs, the Footes and the Soules, the Clays, the Webstebs 
and the Douglases, that bow no lofty forehead in the dust, but can find 
ample room and verge enough under the Constitution. Our friends go down 
there, and must be dwarfed into pigmies before they can find space within 
the lists ! (Cheers.) 

It Avould be superfluous to say that wc grant the entire suicerity and truc- 
heartedncss of these men. But in critical times, when a wrong step entails 
most disastrous consequences, to " mean well " is not enough. Sincerity is 
no shield for any man from the criticism of his fellow-laborers. I do not 
fear that such men as these will take offence at our discussion of their views 
and conduct. Long years of hard labor, in which we have borne at least 
our share, have resulted in a golden opportunity. How to use it, friends 
differ. Shall we stand coui-teously silent, and let these men play out the 
play, when, to our thinking, their plan will slacken the zeal, ballc the hopes, 
and waste the efforts of the Slave's friends ? Iso I I know Cii.uiles Sum- 
ner's love for the cause so well, that I am sure he will welcome my criticism 
whenever I deem his counsel wrong ; that he will hail every effort to serve 
our common client more efficiently. (Great cheering.) It is not his honor 
nor mine that is at issue ; not his feeling nor mine that is to be consulted. 
The only question for either of us is. What in these golden moments can be 
done — where can the hardest blow be struck ? (Loud applause.) I hope I 
am just to Mr. Sumxeu ; I have kno^vn him long, and honor him. I know 
his genius — I honor his virtues ; yet if, from his high place, he sends out 
counsels which I think dangerous to the cause, I am bound to raise my 
voice against them. I do my duty in a private communication to him first, 
then in public to his friends and mine. The friendship that will not bear 
this criticism is but the frost-work of a -n-inter's morning, wliich the sim 
looks upon and it is gone. His friendship -will survive all that I say of him, 
and mine will survive all that he shall say of me ; and this is the only way 
in which the Anti-Slavery cause can be served. Truth, success, victor^-, 
triumph over the obstacles that beset us — this is all either of us wants. 
(Cheers.) 

If all I have said to you is untrue, if I have exaggerated, explain to me 
this fact. In 1831, !Mr. Gakrisox commenced a paper advocating the doc- 
trine of immediate emancipation. He had against him the thirty tliousand 
churches and all the clergy of the country — its wealth, its commerce, its 
press. In 1831, what was the state of tilings ? There was the most entire 
5 



30 SPEECH. 

io-norance and apathy on the Slave question. If men knew of the existence 
of Slavery, it Avas only as a part of picturesque Virginia life. No one 
preached, no one talked, no one wrote about it. No whisper of it stirred 
the surface of the political sea. The Church heard of it occasionally, when 
some Colonization agent asked funds to send the blacks to Africa. Old 
school books tainted with some Anti-Slavery selections, had passed out of 
use, and new ones were compiled to suit the times. Soon as any dissent 
from the prevaihng faith appeared, every one set himself to crush it. The 
pulpits preached at it : the press denoimced it : mobs tore down houses, 
threw presses into the fire and the stream, and shot the editors : religious 
conventions tried to smother it : parties arrayed themselves against it. 
Daniel Webster boasted in the Senate, that he had never introduced the 
subject of Slavery to that body, and never would. Mr. Clay, in 1839, 
makes a speech for the Presidency, in which he says, that to discuss the 
subject of Slavery is moral treason, and that no man has a right to introduce 
the subject into Congress. Mr. Bextox, in 1844, laid down his platform, 
and he not only denies the right, but asserts he never has and ftever wUl 
discuss the subject. Yet Mr. Clay, from 1839 down to his death, hardly 
made a remarkable speech of any kind, except on Slavery. Mr. Webster, 
having indulged now and then in a little easy rhetoric, as at Niblo's and 
elsewhere, opens his mouth m 1840, generously contributing liis aid to both 
sides, and stops talkmg about it only when death closes his lips. Mr. Ben- 
ton's six or eight speeches in the United States Senate have aU been on the 
subject of Slavery in the Southwestern section of the country, and form the 
basis of whatever claim he has to the character of a statesman, and he owes 
his seat in the next Congress somewhat, perhaps, to Anti- Slavery preten- 
sions ! The Whig and Democratic parties pledged themselves just as em- 
phatically against the Anti-Slavery discussion — against agitation and free 
speech. These men said, " It shan't be tallied about, it won't be talked 
about ! " These are your sfatcsmen ! — men who understand the present, 
that is, and mould the future ! The man who understands his own time, 
and whose genius moulds the future to his views, he is a statesman, is he 
not .' These men devoted themselves to banks, to the tariff, to internal im- 
provements, to constitutional and financial questions. They said to Slavery 
— " Back ! no entrance here ! We pledge ourselves against you." And 
then there came up a humble printer boy, who whipped them into the tra- 
ces, and made them talk, like Hotspur's starling, nothing but Slavery. He 
scattered aU these gigantic shadows — tariff, bank, constitutional questions, 
financial questions — and Slavery, like the colossal head in Walpole's ro- 
mance, came up and filled the whole political horizon ! (Enthusiastic 
applause.) Yet you must remember he is not a statesman ; he is a " fanat- 
ic." He has no discipKne — Mr. " lox " .says so; he does not understand 
the " discipline that is essential to victory " ! This man did not understand 
his own time — he did not know what the future was to be — he was not 
able to shape it — he had no "prudence" — he had no "foresight"! 
Daniel Webster says, " I have never introduced this subject, and never 
•will" — and died broken-hearted because he had not been able to talk 



31 



enough about it, Benton says, "I will never speak of Sluverj'" — and 
lives to break with his party on this issue 1 Mr. Ci.av says it Is •• moral 
treason " to introduce the subject into Congress, and lives to sec Couf^ress 
turned into an Anti-Slavery Debatinf; Society, to suit tlic jiuqjose of one 
" too powerfid individual " I 

These ■were statesmen, mark you I Two of thcni liavc gone to tlicir graves 
covered with eulogy ; and our national stock of eloquence is sdl insutlicient 
to describe how profound and far-reaching was the sagacity of I)anii;i, 
Websteu ! Remember who it was that said, in 1831, "I am in earnest — I 
will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — 
and I will be heard ! " (Repeated cheers.) That speaker has lived twenty- 
two yeai-s, and the complaint of twenty-three millions of pqpple is, " Shall 
we never hear of anytliing but Slavery ? " (Cheers.) I heard Dr. Kiuk, of 
Boston, say in his own pulpit, when he returned from London — where he 
had been as a representative to the " Evangelical Alliance " — "I went up 
to London, and they asked me what I thought of the question of immediate 
emancipation ? They examined us all. Is an American never to travel 
anywhere in the world, but men will throw this troublesome question in his 
face ? " "Well, it is all iiis fiiult [pointing to Mr. Gariuson.] (Enthusiastic 
cheers.) 

Now, when we come to talk of statesmanship, of sagacity in choosing time 
and measures, of endeavor, by proper means, to right the public mind, of 
keen insight into the present and potent sway over the future, it seems to 
me that the Abolitionists, who have taken — whether for good or for ill, 
whether to their discredit or to their praise — this country by the four cor- 
ners, and shaken it until you can hear nothing but Slavery, whether you 
travel in railroad or steamboat, whether you enter the hall of legislation or 
read the columns of a newspaper — it seems to me that such men may point 
to the present aspect of the nation, to their originally avowed purpose, to 
the pledges and efforts of all your great men against them, and then let you 
detemune to which side the credit of sagacity and statesmanship belongs. 
Napoleon busied himself, at St. Helena, in showing how "Wellington ought 
not to have conquered at Waterloo. The world has never got time to listen 
to the explanation. Sufficient for it that the Allies entered Paris. In like 
maimer, it seems hardly the pro>'ince of a defeated Church and State to deny 
the skill of measures by which they have been conquered I 

It may sound strange to some, this claim for Mr. G.uiuisoN of a profound 
statesmanship. Men have heard him styled a mere fanatic so long, that they 
are incompetent to judge him fairly. " The phrases men are accustomed," 
say^ Goethe, " to repeat incessantly, end by becoming con%'ictions, and ossily 
the organs of intelligence." I cannot accept you, therefore, as my jury. I 
appeal from Festus to Crcsar ; from the prejudice of oiu: streets to the com- 
mon sense of the world, and to your children. 

Every thoughtful and unprejudiced mind must see that such an evil as 
Slavery will yield only to the most radical treatment. K you consider the 
work we have to do, you will not think us needlessly aggressive, or that we 
dig do^^^l umiecessarily deep in laying the foundations of our enterprise. 



32 



A money power of two thousand millions of dollars, as the prices of Slaves 
now range, held by a small body of able and desperate men ; that body 
raised into a political aristocracy by special constitutional provisions ; cotton, 
the product of Slave labor, forming the basis of our whole foreign commerce, 
and the commercial class thus subsidized ; the press bought up, the pulpit 
reduced to vassalage, the heart of the common people chilled by a bitter 
prejudice against the black race ; our leading men bribed, by ambition, either 
to silence or open hostility — in such a land, on what shall an Abolitionist 
rely ? On a feAv cold prayers, mere lip service, and never from the heart ? 
On a Church Resolution, hidden often in its records, and meant only as a 
decent cover for servility in daily practice ? On political jjarties, with their 
superficial influence at best, and seeking, ordinarily, only to use existing 
prejudices to the best advantage ? Slavery has deeper root here than any 
aristocratic institution has in Europe ; and PoKtics is but the common pulse- 
beat of which Revolution is the fever spasm. Yet we have seen European 
aristocracy survive storms Avhich seemed to reach down to the primal strata 
of Eiu'opean life. Shall we then trust to mere Politics where even Revolu- 
tion ha-s failed "r How shall the stream rise above its fountain ? Where 
shall our Chiirch organizations or parties get strength to attack their great 
parent and moulder, the Slave Power ? Shall the thing formed say to him 
that formed it, why hast thou made me thus ? The old jest of one Avho 
tried to lift himself in his own basket, is but a tame picture of the man who 
imagines that, by working solely through existing sects and parties, he can 
destroy Slavery. Mechanics say nothing but an earthquake, strong enough 
to move all Egypt, can bring down the Pyramids. 

Experience has confirmed these views. The Abolitionists who have acted 
on them have a " short method " -with all unbelievers. They have but to 
point to their own success, m contrast with every other man's failure. To 
-waken the nation to its real state, and chain it to the consideration of this 
one duty, is half the work. So much we have done. Slavery has been made 
the question of this generation. To startle the South to madness, so that 
everv step she takes, in her blindness, is one step more toward ruin, is much. 
This we have done. Witness Texas and the Fugitive Slave Law. To have 
elaborated for the nation the only plan of redemption, pointed out the only 
Exodus from this " sea of troubles," is much. This we claim to have done 
in our motto of Immediate, Unconditional Emancipation on the Soil. 
The closer any statesmanlike mind looks into the question, the more favor 
our plan fiuds with it. The Christian asks fairly of the Infidel, " If this Re- 
ligion be not fi-om God, how do you explain its triumph, and the history of 
the first three centuries ? " Our question is similar. K our agitation has 
not been wisely planned and conducted, explain for us the liistory of the last 
twenty years ! Experience is a safe light to walk by, and he is not a rash 
man who expects success in future from the same means which have secured 
it in times past. 



NOTE. 



Since the publication of my speech in The Liberator, delivered at the last 
Annual Meeting of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, Mi-s. Stowe 
has, very kindly, addressed me a letter, from which I extract all relating to 
Dr. Beecheii : — 

" One pai-t of your speech occasioned me pain. You know what it is, I 
presume, and you will be glad, I also presume, to find that you have over- 
stated the subject. I will give you the facts of the case, and leave it to 
your own honorable mind to judge what abatement should be made in the 
case. My father did not silence the discussion in I>ane Seminary. Those 
resolutions of the Trustees were not passed at his request, either expressed 
or implied. They were passed while he and my husband Avere here in New 
England. They were passed with such determination, and in such a state 
of feeling, that they had no choice, except to throw up their professorships 
or submit to them. ^My father being, as you know, in the advance party of 
the church in theology, was at that time as much a persecuted man in the 
Presbyterian church, as Wm. Lloyd Gaurisox has been in the world. Such 
bitter, unscrupulous enmity, such Irigotry, such persecution, can only be 
paralleled in the history of the Abolitionists. To destroy liis influence, to 
detach from him all his friends, to break down the Institution he was tn,-ing 
to build, and to force him away from the Western country, these were the 
objects in view. Theodore ^Veld's enthusiasm, and the wliirlwind of 
excitement wliich he produced, were criually welcomed by this party as so 
much capital to be used against him. With all credit to my good brother 
Theodore, I must say that prudence is not his forte, and that there was a 
plentiful lack of that useful article in all those worthy reformers. I sjin- 
pathise most cordially in that generous contempt for prudence, which seems 
to be a necessary part of yoimg Luthers ; but I cannot help seeing that the 
want of it was rather unfortunate in that crisis. It seems to me, that it is 
not necessarj- always to present a disagreeable subject in the most disagree- 
able way possible, and needlessly to shock prejudices which we must combat 
at any rate. That, however, is a matter of opinion : I will not insist upon 
it. But the simple question before my father was, either to give up the en- 
terpi-ise of Lane Seminary, or to submit temporarily to those regulations. 
So much for that." 

I gladly give Dr. Beecher the benefit of tliis statement by hLs daughter, 
and well recollect how every free heart sympathised yniix liim in liis coollict 
1 



■with bigoted and vuiscrupidous foes. But, with all respect for Mrs. Stowe, 
I cannot see that the facts she states form any excuse for his conduct as 
President of Lane Seminary. They seem to me to deepen the fault. The 
students at the Seminary were not school-boys, but of mature age, and 
some of them graduates of other Colleges, preparing for the ministry. At 
no time did their An ti- Slavery labors or discussions interfere with their reg- 
ular studies, lead them to omit a recitation, or to break the established rules 
of the Institution. Such men the Trustees forbade either to discuss the 
Slave question in public, or to converse about it in private ! They issued 
this order in deference to a corrupt public opinion, and from fear of a mob. 
Siu'ely this was to sacrifice the Slave to the welfare of the Seminary. 

In these circumstances, Mrs. Stowe says Dr. Beecher submitted to these 
orders, which he had neither requested nor advised, in order to disarm his 
Presbyterian enemies, and save the Institution. That is, against his own 
judgment, he sacrificed the Slave to his own standing with his sect, and to 
the welfare of Lane Seminary. This is just what the clergy of the United 
States are doing at the present moment. Few hate the Slave for his own 
sake. They only sacrihce his riyhts to their own popularity, to their sect or 
party, — to something they lilce better, or value more. Those familiar with 
the history of Lane Seminary will bear me out in the assertion, that what- 
ever was Dr. Beecher' s conduct or language in private, he pursued such a 
course of action, that the public inferred, had a right to infer, and could not 
but infer, that his heart was with the Trustees. When, after leaving the 
Seminary, the young men began to lecture on Slavery, in that neighborhood. 
Dr. Beecher's name and course were quoted by professing Christians as a 
reason for refusing to give them a hearing. 

"We have never asked that any man, or body of men, should devote them- 
selves exclusively to the Anti-Slavery cause. But we have claimed that 
they should give it a fair share of attention ; and, above all, that they 
should never repudiate or deny it, even for an hour, in order to save or to 
increase their own popularit}-, or b\iild up a favorite project. All good 
causes are a brotherhood. We have no right to repudiate one, or to sacrifice 
its claims, that Ave may be more able to serve another. Indeed, this is not 
possible, as the result at Lane Seminary shows. The Institution began to 
die from that hour. 

With regard to Mr. Weld's "prudence," justice to him requires a word. 
No reformer has ever been thought prudent by his cotemporaries, not even 
those who turned the world upside down eighteen hundred years ago. But, 
during that very visit to New England, to which ]Mrs. Stowe refers, at the 
very moment the Trustees were passing their Resolutions, Dr. Beecher, 
who had but jvist left the Seminary, was extolling, in unmeasured terms, the 
devotedncss, fidelity, attention, and general good conduct of these very 
students. And since Dr. Beecher was himself opposed to the Resolutions, 
we have the support of his judgment, on the spot and at the time, that they 
were not necessary. \Vhoever wishes to inquire fiu-ther wUl find the whole 
struggle painted in the Defence put forth by the Trustees, and the Statement 
published by the students. 



The letter goes on : — 

" Second. It is not true th;it 'in ecclesiastical discussions, subsequent to 
this thue, the ^veil;ht of liis heavy hand has always been felt against the 
Slave.' The Cuieuinati Presbytery, of -whicli lie, and my husband, and the 
other professors -were leading members, actually have taken liigher Anti- 
Slavery ground, and used more vigorous Anti-Slavery action, tlian any 
ecclesiastical body in the United States, except the Quakers ; and this was 
done -with my father's couciuTence and consent. Tliis ground was the 
deposing of Mr. Gkauam from the ministry, for defending Slaverv- from 
the Bible. This was the almost unanimous A'ote of the Cincinnati Presby- 
tery, and it was contirmed by the Cincinnati S>niod. Mr. Gu.\uam appealed 
to the Generid Assembly, and the Assembly reversed the action, and 
recommended to the Presbytery to restore him. Prof. Allen, of Lane 
Seminary, who was on the floor of the Assembly at tlie time, told the 
General Assembly they might rely upon it that the Cincinnati Presbj-tcry 
would never retrace their steps ; and so it proved. !Mr. Giuuam" was 
obliged to go to the Old School Chiu'ch. You will observe, that an impor- 
tant jirinciple was established here, which, had it been observed, would have 
kept the Church free from complicity with Slaveholders. 

" Your remark with regard to blood is certainly true. K I have had any 
Anti-Slavery proclivities, I got them very early in life from my father's 
sermons and prayers, at the time of the discussion of the Missouri question. 
I shall never forget the deep feeling he showed when he heard of the 
admission of Missoiiri. It Avas as if he had sustained some great personal 
calamity. 

" These facts I lay before you. You can make any use you please of 
them." 

I joyfully accord to Dr. Bi;ecuek all the merit which concurrence m the 
movement against Mr. Geahaji deserves. How low must the general 
Church have fallen, when we are glad to confess that the stand made by 
that Presbytery was a noble one, and does them great honor ; while it was 
only to forbid a clergyman to defend Slavery from the Bible ! If, however, 
he is to be praised for " concurring " in the good deed of that Presbj'terj-, of 
which he was but a simple member, surely, he is still more to be held 
accountable for the evil decree of the Trustees of Lane Seminary, to which 
he not only, gave, in public, his " conc\irrencc," but, as President of the 
Facultj-, carried it into execution. If my language, as quoted, is too strong, 
I should willingly qualify it. But Dr. Beechee. has, for twenty-five years, 
occupied a very prominent jiosition, and exerted a most commanding influ- 
ence. During that time, there have been, in fact, but two parties on this 
question. The Pro- Slavery world. Church and State, is one : the .^Vnti- 
Slavery body is the other. I can appeal to every laborer in the Anti-Slaverv^ 
cause to say, whether, during those years, Dr. Beecuer's influence has ever 
been distinctly felt on the Slave's side ? Whether it has not always been 
thro^Ti into the scale of a Church, then and now a Pro-Slavery body : I 
think I do not misrepresent when I say, that his first public, expUcit word 
in behalf of the Anti-Slavery cause is yet to be uttered. 

WENDELL PHILLIPS. 
Boston, Marcli 4, 1853. 



CORRECTIONS 



In enumerating essays on the practical working of the Slave system, I 
ought to have named a very full and valuable one — " Slavery and the 
Internal Slave Trade in the United States," prepared for the World's 
Convention, by T. D. Weld and others, and published, at London, in 1841. 

The Anti-Slavery construction of the Constitution -was ably argued in 
1836, two years earlier than I have dated it, in the " Anti-Slavery Magazme," 
by Sajiuel J. May ; one of the very first to seek the side of Mr. Garrison, 
and pledge to the Slave his life and efforts — a pledge which more than 
twenty years of devoted labors have nobly redeemed. 

The aUusion on page 28, to the Free Soil press of Oliio, should be erased, 
as it is incorrect. On page 12, Dr. Channing should be quoted as pronounc- 
ing Mr. Weld's Essay " one of the ablest pamphlets fi."om the American 
press." My request to have the words " unworthy trick," struck out from 
the paragraph relating to Mr. Mann, page 25, reached the printer too late. 
I intended to say only that the disclaimer was rmAvorthy of Mr. ^Iann. 

On page 6, fourteenth line from the top, for dull, read dwnh. 

W. P. 



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